Rope Quotes

In August 1867, a thirteen-year-old142 boy who had severely cut his arm while operating a machine at a fair in Glasgow was admitted to Lister's infirmary. The boy's wound was open and smeared with grime - a setup for gangrene. But rather than amputating the arm, Lister tried a salve of carbolic acid, hoping to keep the arm alive and uninfected. The wound teetered on the edge of a terrifying infection, threatening to become an abscess. But Lister persisted, intensifying his application of carbolic acid paste. For a few weeks, the whole effort seemed hopeless. But then, like a fire running to the end of a rope, the wound began to dry up. A month later, when the poultices were removed, the skin had completely healed underneath. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

I ask about the sky, but the answer is about a rope. ~ Idries Shah

One morning as I closed the cyclone-fence gate / to begin a slow drift / down to the cookhouse on foot / (because my truck wheels were glued / in deep mud once again), / I walked straight into / the waiting non-arms of a snake, / its tan beaded-bag skin / studded with black diamonds.
Up it coiled to speak to me a eye level. / Imagine! that sleek finger / rising out of the land's palm / and coiling faster than a Hindu rope. / The thrill of a bull snake / startled in the morning / when the mesas lie pooled / in a custard of light / kept me bright than ball lightning all day.
Praise leapt first to mind / before flight or danger, / praise that knows no half-truth, and pardons all. ~ Diane Ackerman

Later that year I happened to read a book by Dr. Neil Fiore that validated Bill's suspicion about being too careful. The book was called The Now Habit and was about overcoming procrastination. Dr. Fiore suggested that succeeding in a career is not unlike walking on a tightrope. The more success we achieve, the higher the rope. As we gain something, we have more to lose. Success causes a ravine beneath our careers that grows more deadly, creating a kind of fear of trying. He said the fear of letting people down is one of the primary reasons people procrastinate. ~ Donald Miller

Luca saw her bloodstained hands as the clerk bound them with a rope, and Luca realized that she was a thing of horror, a beautiful thing of horror, the worst thing between heaven and hell: a fallen angel. ~ Philippa Gregory

Destiny has got the rope round my neck – and I feel it. ~ Wilkie Collins

VILLAIN.
By Omrane Khuder.

Staggering, tripping, stumbling down the tightrope,
hastening to be set free.
Yearning to be protected by the Superhero,
before the Villain's revulsion ingests me.

Misplacing my footing on the tightrope,
hands sweltering as the rope is pulled away.
Glancing down at the fire below me,
the chuckling Villain has won today.

Little did I know, it was He setting me free.
Little did I know, the tightrope was me. ~ Omrane Khuder

To vindicate the sanctity of human life by taking it is an outrage upon reason. The spectacle of a human being dangling at the end of a gallows-rope is a degradation of humanity. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it. ~ Herman Melville

When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life. ~ Viola Davis

Hard as I fought for it to be otherwise, finally I had to admit it too: without my mother, we weren't what we'd been; we were four people floating separately among the flotsam of our grief, connected by only the thinnest rope. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Outside the night worked its way towards dawn and inside Tina talked. When she got to the part about seeing Lockie in the uniform's house she watched Doug's face. She didn't spare him anything because Lockie hadn't been spared. She talked about the rope and the cold and the way Lockie froze when the man touched him.
Doug's skin became the colour of chalk and his fists clenched.She wanted to spare him the details but he needed to know. When she told him about letting Lockie hit the uniform with the poker a grim smile crossed his face. Tina understood the smile. People never really got beyond the concept of an eye for an eye. Especially when someone took your child. ~ Nicole Trope

That's our cue to depart."
"They know something " I pointed out.
"I know something too. I know we're going to attract a lot of unwanted attention if they keep screaming. And then we have to make up some ridiculous explanation about how we heard screaming through the vents in our rooms and we followed the sound back to the basement and we found these girls lying on the ground and pretending to be tied up by invisible rope because they're practicing for the regional mime championships."
I blinked at her. "Is that explanation more or less believable than we woke up because two girls who are actually evil magicians tripped a magical alarm wired to a door in the basement we aren't supposed to know about "
Scout paused for a minute then nodded. "Point made. ~ Chloe Neill

I watched our friends' wary, intelligent faces droop at our tale. Their shock was a mere shadow of our own, resembling more the goodwilled imitation of that emotion, and for this reason it was a temptation to exaggerate, to throw a rope of superlatives across the abyss that divided experience from its representation by anecdote. ~ Ian McEwan

The ocean turns cold, dark, pressing around me, but the deeper I go the more the iron inside of me twists and pulls and I know that I'm tethered to the boat, that even now the men pull the rope tighter and drag me back to the surface. ~ Kendall Kulper

The rope that pulls you from the flood can become a noose around your neck. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Tomorrow at seven o'clock a strange phenomenon will occur: the earth is going to sit on the moon. This has also been written about by the noted English chemist Wellington. I confess, I felt troubled at heart when I pictured to myself the extraordinary delicacy and fragility of the moon. For the moon is usually made in Hamburg, and made quite poorly. I'm surprised England doesn't pay attention to this. It's made by a lame cooper, and one can see that the fool understands nothing about the moon. He used tarred rope and a quantity of cheap olive oil, and that's why there's a terrible stench all over the earth, so that you have to hold your nose. And that's why the moon itself is such a delicate sphere that people can't live on it, and now only noses live there. And for the same reason, we can't see our own noses, for they're all in the moon. ~ Nikolai Gogol

You might think about putting some heavy-duty hooks into the ceiling joists and beams so that you can have a rope ladder, or a small swing inside your house. ~ Paula Yates

Republicans don't like people to talk about depressions. You can hardly blame them for that. You remember the old saying: Don't talk about rope in the house where somebody has been hanged. ~ Harry Truman

(Looking at the tree) Pity we haven't got a bit of rope. ~ Samuel Beckett

Owing to ignorance of the rope the rope appears to be a snake; owing to ignorance of the Self the transient state arises of the individualized, limited, phenomenal aspect of the Self. ~ Guru Nanak

I opened my backpack and checked my supplies: some enchanted rope, my curved ivory wand, a lump of wax for making a magical shabti figurine, my calligraphy set, and a healing potion my friend Jaz had brewed for me a while back. (She knew that I got hurt a lot.) ~ Rick Riordan

Prayer is the rope that pulls God and man together. But, it doesn't pull God down to us: It pulls us up to Him. ~ Billy Graham

I love you because ... wait ... I take a drag from my pipe ... I really don't know. I think that's the beauty of love, wanting to be with someone, taste their sweetness and their fears, live their lives and be there in their death, share their ups and their downs, and most importantly, love them and grow old with them, even if they were some kind of monsters.
Have you ever been unable to shake your soul free, wrapped with your lover's velvet rope around your heart? Have you ever been enchanted with a nameless spell that made pain and pleasure synonymous? ~ Cameron Jace

The Hopi Indians thought that the world's religions each contained one spiritual thread, and that these threads are always seeking each other, wanting to join. When all the threads are finally woven together they will form a rope that will pull us out of this dark cycle of history and into the next realm. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Most people have a rope that ties them to someone, and that rope can be short or it can be long. (Be long. Belong. Get it?) You don't know how long, though. It's not your choice. ~ Nick Hornby

Hope, though; now there's a real pest. Hope doesn't just nibble your cheese and chew holes in your skirting boards. Hope keeps you plodding on when it really is time to call it quits. Hope drags you to sixteen auditions in a single day, when there's a nice job in your brother-in-law's tannery just waiting for you. Hope keeps you going in Old Stairs or Paradise, even though there's no money and nothing to eat and the landlord just took your chair and your chamber pot. Personally, I can see no great merit in simply being alive if you're miserable and in pain, but Hope won't let you go. She's a tease, like bad children teasing a dumb animal, and I've made a point of avoiding her whenever I can. Still, sometimes she runs you down and there's nowhere left for you to go. You can turn and fight her and lose, or let her scoop you up and turn your brain to mush.

Hope against hope. We had human chains shifting those blocks with levers and rollers, through the narrow alleys where carts couldn't go. We had shifts digging the ditch by lamplight, in the rain. And in every working party there was at least one man who cheerfully announced that it wasn't going to work, the whole idea was stupid, the enemy'll find a way round this in two shakes, just you see; and even he didn't really believe it, because of Hope. Hope turns a hundred men and women ripping the skin off their hands on a coarse hemp rope into a street party. Someone tells a joke, or clowns around, or starts singing a f ~ K.J. Parker

You know, people think you have to be dumb to skip rope for 45 minutes. No, you have to be able to imagine something else. While you're skipping rope, you have to be able to see something else. ~ John Irving

We both try to fight the rope that binds us, but the knots are too tight. ~ Corinne Michaels

My intention all along had been to get my wakeboarding legs back this first day. Maybe I'd do tricks when we went out the next day. I didn't want to get too cocky and bust ass in front of Sean. But as I got more comfortable and forgot to care, I tried a few standbys-a front flip, a scarecrow. There was no busting of ass. So I tried a backroll. And landed it solidly.
Now I got cocky. I did a heelside backroll with a nosegrab. This meant that in the middle of the flip, I let go of the rope handle with one hand, reached down, and grabbed the front of the board. It served no purpose in the trick except to look impressive, like, This only appears to be a difficult trick. I have all the time in the world. I will grab the board. Yawn. And I landed it. This was getting too good to be true.
My brother swung the boat around just before we reached the graffiti-covered highway bridge that spanned the lake. Cameron had spray-painted his name and his girlfriend's name on the bridge, alongside all the other couples' names and over the faded ones. My genius brother had tried to paint his own name but ran out of room on that section of bridge.

McGULLICUDD
Y
Sean wisely never painted his girlfriends' names. He would have had to change them too often. For my part, I was very thankful that when most of this spray-painting action was going on last summer, I was still too short to reach over from the pile and haul myself up on the main part of the bridge. I probably ~ Jennifer Echols

You rarely see one punch kill anybody. I mean, Davey Moore died, the first fight I ever worked for the title, my guy fought and was getting killed, and he hit Davey Moore. Davey Moore went down. There was no bottom rope to it. I then put bottom rope to it, when I got in power. Hit his head. One blow, hit his head and died. ~ Ferdie Pacheco

But that darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some vengeful deed. ~ Herman Melville

So in case you were wondering, I had no idea her friend was you," Gael said. "I wouldn't have tried to rope you into babysitting, I promise."

"I believe you," Sammy said. "Don't worry. We're hardly even friends, really, I just met her yesterday - ooh, look," she squealed, interrupting herself. "There's a baby elephant!"

Gael laughed. "I wouldn't have expected you to go ape-shit for baby animals."

Sammy raised an eyebrow. "Name one person with a soul who doesn't go apeshit for baby animals. They're, like, animals who are tiny. Who are you, the devil?"

Gael shook his head. "I like them, too. Obviously. But your voice went about a million levels higher just then."

Sammy crossed her arms. "Maybe you should question your ability to maintain an even tone of voice in the face of" - she smiled one of those weird upside-down smiles that little kids do when they're excited - "BABY ELEPHANTS. ~ Leah Konen

Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think. ~ Mark Twain

Opposite the Half-Axe was the narrow-fronted entrance to a shop devoted to short lengths of rope and wooden poles a man and a half high. Tehol had no idea how such a specialized enterprise could survive, especially in this unravelled, truncated market, yet its door had remained open for almost six centuries, locked up each night by a short length of rope and a wooden pole. ~ Steven Erikson

He's afraid he'll cower into himself again, like every other day, and then say nothing at all when he really wants to say everything--to speak his body and his heart into existence. ~ Jonathan Corcoran

Playing scales is like a boxer skipping rope or punching a bag. It's not the thing in itself; it's preparatory to the activity ~ Barney Kessel

We had it drilled into us time and time again: 'If someone above you falls, grip tightly to the vertical rope and cradle that person in your arms until help can get to you.' ... If someone fell down on me I swear I would have bitten him on the ass and would keep on biting until he got off onhis own. ~ C.S. Crawford

It is a strange thing how quickly our bodies die. How fragile a force our presence is. In an instant the soul is gone - leaving an empty, insignificant vessel in its stead. I have read of those sent to the gallows and guillotines of Europe. I have read of the great war of ages past and men slaughtered by the tens of thousands. And we give but fleeting consideration to such deaths, for it is our nature to banish such thoughts. But in doing so, we forget that they were each as alive as we, and the one length of rope - or bullet - or blade, took the whole of their lives in that one, fragile instant. Took their earliest days as swaddled infants, and their grayest unfulfilled futures. When one think of how many souls have suffered this fate in all of history - of the untold murders of untold men, women and children.. it is too much to bear. ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Another thing I learned: it's one thing to climb a rope in gym class. It's a completely different thing to climb a rope attached to a moving pig's wing while you're flying at a hundred miles an hour. ~ Rick Riordan

I think the first time I really heard poetry was in the schoolyard. Just the little limericks that kids say when they're jumping rope and playing games. I think that's the first time I heard rhyming words - I don't know if I'd call that the definitive poetry, but that's when I heard rhyming words said and not necessarily sung. ~ Jill Scott

Don't ever scare me like that again, swinging on the rope."
"I won't. I'll find a new way," she teased. ~ Lisa Cach

Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibers. Take the cable thread by thread, take separately all the little determining motives, you break them one after another, and you say: that is all! Wind them and twist them together, they become an enormity. ~ Victor Hugo

Her needs, desires, and fears run deep. So deep she could easily lose her way in the darkness. She needs a rope, not one that tethers her to her horrific past, but a strong, unbreakable line to guide her forward. The bindings might hold her down, but I'm pulling the other end. I'll never let go. With ~ Pam Godwin

I do not know from what associations the hippopotamus got into the chess board, but although the spectators were convinced that I was continuing to study the position, I, despite my humanitarian education, was trying at this time to work out: just how WOULD you drag a hippopotamus out of the marsh? I remember how jacks figured in my thoughts, as well as levers, helicopters, and even a rope ladder. After a lengthy consideration I admitted defeat as an engineer, and thought spitefully to myself: "Well, just let it drown!" And suddenly the hippopotamus disappeared. Went right off the chessboard just as he had come on... of his own accord! And straightaway the position did not appear to be so complicated. ~ Mikhail Tal

Any day you had gym class was a weird school day. It started off normal. You had English, Social Studies, Geometry, then suddenly your in Lord of the Flies for 40 minutes. Your hanging from a rope, you have hardly any clothes on, teachers are yelling at you, kids are throwing dodge balls at you and snapping towels - you're trying to survive. And then it's Science,Language, and History. Now that is a weird day. ~ Jerry Seinfeld

He was not her sole companion. She had her demons, too.

You can't run from them, as Lexi discovered. Changing cities doesn't help either; you carry them along inside you. You just wake up one day, fed up, and decide to snuggle with them instead. You invite them along as you go about your day, balancing them on your shoulder as you would a toddler, but with very strict conditions: You will not set fire to my hair. You will not take candy from strangers. You will not tie me up in chains while I sleep. You will behave.

And Lexi's demons, allowed to come close, sat on her shoulder. They waved to the angels perched on her other shoulder and struck up a conversation with Lexi.

'What's that noise?' her demons asked, sidling close to her ear.

'Oh, that?' Lexi massaged her temples. 'It's the air whistling through the hole in my heart.'

'You're afraid,' they taunted.

'I am,' she admitted. 'Afraid of the sky falling. Afraid of the tight-rope snapping. Afraid I can't dance well enough on the edge. Afraid there are no hands to steady my body. Afraid of hands that wish to cage my heart.'

'Coward,' the demons goaded. ~ Angela Panayotopulos

You're probably thinking the same thing we were: where did Jane get the rope to tie the prisoners? We researched this very conundrum thoroughly, and after two weeks we can say, without a doubt : nobody knows. It's a question that has baffled historians and archaeologists alike. Professor Herbert Halprin explains: "Ropes have been a mystery to scholars throughout the ages. The first ropes were thought to appear as far back as 17,000 BC and made of vines. Unfortunately, being made of vines, none of those early examples survived. Later, da Vinci drew sketches for a rope-making machine, but it was never built. In medieval times, there were secret societies, called Rope Guilds, whose rope-twisting practices were protected via a complicated series of handshakes and passwords -" Okay. Your narrators are interrupting the dear professor, for reasons of boredom. Plus, his English accent sounded sketchy and forced. We asked him where Jane could've gotten the rope, but maybe he thought we asked him where anyone could've gotten any rope at any given point in history. Trust us, we are as frustrated as you must be about the lack of a definitive answer. ~ Cynthia Hand

Between birth and death, neighbour, there is no business that is not risky; drinking water in a sitting position included! . The gist of the matter is to do everything with fine tuning as an acrobat does when walking a tight rope, like a carpenter measuring everything meticulously! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

'You know that saying, give a man enough rope?' When Matt nodded, Howard continued. 'I can assure you the person who came up with it didn't know Aubrey. You give him enough rope and he'll tie you to a chair with it.' ~ J.L. Langley

The bastards who dommed you before needed rope, and duct tape. All I need is a firm grip in your hair, my lips this close to your throat, and the sting of my palm across your ass. That's the difference, Precious. ~ Sai Marie Johnson

Support by United States rulers is rather in the nature of the support that the rope gives to a hanged man. ~ Nikita Khrushchev

... for miracles to happen, God, need our cooperation. As Pastor Charles once told me, God can throw us a rope to save us, but we have to hold to it. ~ Stevan V. Nikolic

The intensity of a person unafraid of death, at the end of his rope. ~ Banana Yoshimoto

I never had any desire to get a tattoo. If I was ever going to get one, I would get a plain anchor with a rope around it, the most unimaginative possible tattoo, like Popeye had. ~ John Waters

( ... )"He said we all have this different idea of what love is and that's what makes our circle. The more ideas and misconceptions you throw in, the larger the diameter and the harder it is to connect with someone. We," he said, squeezing Hunter's hand and signaling Margie and everyone around them, "all sit around the edge looking at everyone else around the circle. Sometimes we just settle for the person next to us because it's easy or convenient and we skip our way around its circumference, never really knowing what love is all about."
He took a sip of his Coke and kept his eyes on Margie. "But other times, you see that person across from you, staring back at you, and you fight like hell trying to get across while he does the same. If you're lucky, there's a rope you can toss over and help draw each other in, never looking away, never worrying about those still on the circumference; just you and him, pulling each other in, deeper and deeper." ~ Brandon Shire

Unlock untie yourself from people who rope u into redundancy ~ Ikechukwu Joseph

Pain concentrates the mind. Pain tethers you to this world, and the rope is a stout one. But at the same time, the grace of God enables you to look along the pain, to look down the entire length of the trial, and to see the purpose and point of it all. ~ Douglas Wilson

On the road leading from his ranch to Samantha's, Wyat t drove his surrey up a small hill and caught his breath as the beauty of the large crescent moon dangling just out of reach over the crest A full moon would have been plump with luminescence, yet the pearly surface of the sickle still cast enough light to shadow his surroundings and seemed close enough that once he drove to the top of the hill, he'd be able to touch the bottom horn or at least toss a rope around it. He slackened the reins, slowing the horse, knowing that the higher he climbed, the sooner the illusion of closeness would disappear and he wanted to preserve for a moment the fantasy that the moon was within his grasp.
The stars, by contrast, were distant pricks of diamond light farther out than a man could dream. He sighed. Life as a rancher or as a rancher's wife was not moon and stars easy or romantic. What would put stars in Samantha's eyes? ~ Debra Holland

He uncovered the boat, his hands working the knots like he'd been doing it his whole life. Under the tarp was an old steel rowboat with no oars. The boat had been painted dark blue at one point, but the hull was so crusted with tar and salt it looked like one massive nautical bruise.
On the bow, the name Pax was still readable, lettered in gold. Painted eyes drooped sadly at the water level, as if the boat were about to fall asleep. On board were two benches, some steel wool, an old cooler, and a mound of frayed rope with one end tied to the mooring. At the bottom of the boat, a plastic bag and two empty Coke cans floated in several inches of scummy water.
"Behold," Frank said. "The mighty Roman navy. ~ Rick Riordan

Keep a man on a rope that's short enough to trip him without choking him. ~ Jenna Alatari

Home"

It would take forever to get there
but I would know it anywhere:

My white horse grazing in my blossomy field.
Its soft nostrils. The petals
falling from the trees into the stream.

The festival would be about to begin
in the dusky village in the distance. The doe
frozen at the edge of the grove:

She leaps. She vanishes. My face -
She has taken it. And my name -

(Although the plaintive lark in the tall
grass continues to say and to say it.)

Yes. This is the place.
Where my shining treasure has been waiting.
Where my shadow washes itself in my fountain.

A few graves among the roses. Some moss
on those. An ancient

bell in a steeple down the road
making no sound at all
as the monk pulls and pulls on the rope. ~ Laura Kasischke

Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively. If one of them falls down, the other can help him up ... Two people can resist an attack that would defeat one person alone. A rope made of three cords is hard to break. Ecclesiastes 4:9 (TEV) ~ Rick Warren

It look like the lord just work for wite folks cause ever sens i wasn nothin but a litle boy i been on my on haulin water to the fiel on that ol water cart wit all them dime bukets an that dipper just hittin an old dorthy just trottin and trottin an me up their hittin her wit that rope ... ~ Thomas Jefferson

There was a sound of movement, of clinking glass: Amycus was coming round. Before Harry or Luna could act, Professor McGonagall rose to her feet, pointed her wand at the groggy Death Eater, and said, "Imperio."
Amycus got up, walked over to his sister, picked up her wand, then shuffled obediently to Professor McGonagall and handed it over along with his own. Then he lay down on the floor beside Alecto. Professor McGonagall waved her wand again, and a length of shimmering silver rope appeared out of thin air and snaked around the Carrows, binding them tightly together.
"Potter," said Professor McGonagall, turning to face him again with superb indifference to the Carrows' predicament. ~ J.K. Rowling

We might even purposely create time for boredom on a summer day, so they have to go to the garage and see what interesting fun they can have with a pulley, some rope, and a roll of duct tape. ~ Daniel J. Siegel

God ... God ... dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I'm at the end of my rope. Show me the way, God ... ~ George Bailey

Music is a uniter, so anything that has to do with VIP and ropes and barriers is not my way. Sometimes I have to deal with it, and sometimes I'm put behind those barriers, but I do all I can to bring it down. ~ Eugene Hutz

I feel the ground slipping under my feet, and just as I am about to fall off the precipice, you draw out a rope and pull me into the safety net of your embrace. That's the thing - I can never trust you to rescue me, and yet you do. Unfailingly. ~ Rosalyn D'Mello

And the pain...the pain of my awareness is unbearable. Because my eyes do not close. Ever. And so all I can do is watch unblinkingly as my beloved humankind slowly weaves the rope it will use to hang itself. ~ Neal Shusterman

Had the girl had any common sense, she would have dropped the line at once. But she had no sense. She made no sense. She was a pale English rose of a governess, adrift in a watery wilderness, on her way to a grueling post on a godforsaken island, when any fool could have told her-a woman so lovely need never work for her keep.
Had the men around her any sense, they would have cut the rope immediately. But they were idiots, bloody shite-for-brains idiots, too entranced by the pretty girl in peril to reach for their knives.
Had Gray his own knife, he would have drawn it. But he wasn't wearing his knife, because he wasn't the captain on this ship, was he? Nor an officer, nor even part of the crew. He was just a stupid, overdressed passenger who hadn't strapped on a goddamned knife that morning because it might ruin the lines of his goddamned brand-new coat. ~ Tessa Dare

The whole business is the crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose. ~ Isaac Asimov

They call it the rope-a-dope. Well, I'm the dope. Ali just laid on the rope and I, like a dope, kept punching until I got tired. But he was probably the most smart fighter I've ever gotten into the ring with. ~ George Foreman

Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster. ~ Cyril Connolly

Trousers rolled to the knee but still they got wet. They tied the rope to a cleat at the rear of the boat and rowed back across the lake, jerking the stump slowly behind them. By then it was already evening. Just the slow periodic rack and shuffle of the oarlocks. The lake dark glass and windowlights coming on along the shore. A radio somewhere. Neither of them had spoken a word. This was the perfect day of childhood. This is the day to shape the days upon. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Because there's a silent, shrugging, stoical acceptance of all the things in the world we can never be part of: shorts, swimming pools, strappy dresses, country walks, roller-skating, ra-ra skirts, vest tops, high heels, rope climbing, sitting on a high stool, walking past building sites, flirting, being kissed, feeling confident. And ever losing weight, ever. The idea of suggesting we don't have to be fat –that things could change –is the most distant and alien prospect of all. We're fat now and we'll be fat forever and we must never, ever mention it, and that is the end of it. It's like Harry Potter's Sorting Hat. We were pulled from the hat marked 'Fat' and that is what we must now remain, until we die. Fat is our race. Our species. Our mode. As a result, there is very little of the outside world –and very little of the year –we can enjoy. Summer is sweaty under self-conscious layers. On stormy days, wind flattens skirts against thighs, and alarms both us and, we think, onlookers and passers-by. Winter is the only time we feel truly comfortable: covered head to toe in jumpers, coats, boots and hat. I develop a crush on Father Christmas. If I married him, not only would I be expected to stay fat, but I'd look thin standing next to him, in comparison. Perspective would be my friend. We all dream of moving to Norway, or Alaska, where we could wear massive padded coats all the time, and never reveal an inch of flesh. When it rains, we're happiest of all. Then we can just stay ~ Caitlin Moran

Think of it as a symbol. Here's the chain, joining us together. I know it's a symbol of captivity. Slavery, even. But I also like to think it represents an anchoring. You know, like the rope thrown over the side of a ship. ~ Primula Bond

Somehow Luke understood - in a way that Lando never had, that Hand and Leia and Chewbacca had simply never grasped - just how dark a place the universe really was.
Lando guessed that was where Luke got his humility. His kindness. His gentle faith that people could change for the better. That must have been why he rarely smiled, and almost never made jokes. Because the goodness was all he rally had. It was his lifeline. The rope to which he clung, dangling over the abyss. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover

A space was quickly cleared in the crowd, and a rope placed about his neck, when from somewhere came the suggestion, "Burn him!" It ran like an electric current. Have you ever witnessed the transformation of human beings into savage beasts? Nothing can be more terrible. ~ James Weldon Johnson

The Pension Dressler stood in a side street and had, at first glance, the air rather of a farm than of a hotel. Frau Dressler's pig, tethered by one hind trotter to the jamb of the front door, roamed the yard and disputed the kitchen scraps with the poultry. He was a prodigious beast. Frau Dressler's guests prodded him appreciatively on the way to the dining-room, speculating on how soon he would be ripe for killing. The milch-goat was allowed a narrower radius; those who kept strictly to the causeway were safe, but she never reconciled herself to this limitation and, day in, day out, essayed a series of meteoric onslaughts on the passers-by, ending, at the end of her rope, with a jerk which would have been death to an animal of any other species. One day the rope would break; she knew it, and so did Frau Dressler's guests. ~ Evelyn Waugh

You could see the roads crisscrossing over the fields. When cars went by, far away, the beams were so bright they seemed to be ropes of light pulling the cars behind. ~ Cynthia Kadohata

When he stood trembling with fear before the captor, bruised from falls by the restrictive rope, made submissive by choking, clogs, cuts and starvation, he had lost what made him so beautiful and free ... One out of every three mustangs captured in south west Texas was expected to die before they were tamed. The process often broke the spirits of the other two. ~ J. Frank Dobie

You might be a redneck if you own all the components of soap on a rope except the soap. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

Lady Sarah steps in, wearing her nightclothes under a fluffy ivory robe and a chastising expression. Behind her glasses, her eyes narrow on Henry.
"So this is how it's going to be, then? Married only a few days and I already have to search the palace to drag my husband to bed?"
Henry goes to Sarah, like an invisible rope is reeling him to her. "Dragging me to your bed is something you'll never have to do, love. You can even tie me there whenever you like, and I'll be happy to reciprocate."
He kisses her mouth, as she blushes deep and bright.
She leans back. "Then why are you down here instead of up there with me?"
"There was an emergency."
"What kind of an emergency?"
"You're not going to believe it."
"Try me."
"Logan and Ellie are fucking."
She automatically glances at me, and her cheeks deepen to a shade of crimson. "I'm sure there's a more delicate way to word that, Henry."
Henry nods, soberly. "You're right, I'm sorry. Let me try again: Logan and Ellie are humping, like insatiable randy bunnies, all over the palace."
Sarah shakes her head. "You're hopeless."
The Prince grins broadly. "It's part of my charm."
"What am I going to do with you?"
Henry kisses her again. "Take me to bed. Obviously. ~ Emma Chase

If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, then a family is more like a rope. We're lots of fragile little strands, and we survive by becoming hopelessly intertwined with each other. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

This year there will be an eclipse of the Moon on the fourth day of August.9 Saturn will be retrograde; Venus, direct; Mercury, variable. And a mass of other planets will not proceed as they used to.10 As a result, crabs this year will walk sideways, rope-makers work backwards, stools end up on benches, and pillows be found at the foot of the bed;11 many men's bollocks will hang down for lack of a game-bag;12 the belly will go in front and the bum be the first to sit down; nobody will find the bean in their Twelfth Night cake; not one ace will turn up in a flush; the dice will never do what you want, however much you may flatter them;13 and the beasts will talk in sundry places. ~ Francois Rabelais

Here before you lies the memorial to St. Cefnogwr, though he is not buried here, of course." At her words, an uncanny knowing flushed through Katy and, crazy-of-crazy, transfixed her. "Why? Where is he?" Traci stepped forward, hand on her hip. A you're-right-on-cue look crossed the guide's face. She pointed to the ceiling. Traci scoffed. "I meant, where's the body?" Her American southern accent lent a strange contrast to her skepticism. Again, the tour guide's arthritic finger pointed upward, and a smile tugged at her lips, the smokers' wrinkles on her upper lip smoothing out. "That's the miracle that made him a saint, you see. Throughout the twelve hundreds, the Welsh struggled to maintain our independence from the English. During Madog's Rebellion in 1294, St. Cefnogwr, a noble Norman-English knight, turned against his liege lord and sided with the Welsh - " "Norman-English?" Katy frowned, her voice raspy in her dry throat. "Why would a Norman have a Welsh name and side with the Welsh?" She might be an American, but her years living in England had taught her that was unusual.

"The English nicknamed him. It means 'sympathizer' in Welsh. The knight was captured and, for his crime, sentenced to hang. As he swung, the rope creaking in the crowd's silence, an angel of mercy swooped down and - " She clapped her hands in one decisive smack, and everyone jumped. "The rope dangled empty, free of its burden. Proof, we say, of his noble cause. He's been venerated ever since ~ Angela Quarles

Liupan the Mountain of Six Circles Dazzling sky to the far cirrus clouds. I gaze at wild geese vanishing into the south. If we cannot reach the Long Wall we are not true men. On my fingers I count the twenty thousand li we have already marched. On the summit of Liupan the west wind lazily ripples our red banner. Today we have the long rope in our hands. When will we tie up the gray dragon of the seven stars? ~ Mao Zedong

Hold this rope while I dive into my soul; don't even bother pulling it if I didn't come up on my own. ~ Ahmed Mostafa

WE STOLE THE EAGLE FROM THE AIR FORCE, THE ANCHOR FROM THE NAVY AND THE ROPE FROM THE ARMY.
ON THE SEVENTH DAY WHILE GOD RESTED, WE OVERRAN HIS PERIMETER, STOLE THE GLOBE AND WE'VE BEEN RUNNING THE WHOLE SHOW EVER SINCE. ~ U.S. Marine Corps

I'll fight anybody who grabs the rope to hang themselves. ~ Adrien Broner

Just because I cut a lark with that stiff-rumped Exciseman you seem to think I'm as good as rope-ripe! ~ Georgette Heyer

When you're not playing up to your capability, you gotta try everything, to motivate, to get them going. All of them have to be on the same end of the rope to pull together. It's playing for the name on the front of the shirt, not the back. Individualism gets you trophies and plaques. Play for the front, that wins championships. I try to remind them of that. ~ Tommy Lasorda

Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs. ~ Tom Waits

Several fireboat men were trying to board the burning ferry. They had no apparent reason to do so, for all the passengers were either dead or saved and the firemen could not hope to extinguish the flames simply by being closer to them. Why then were they working their way hand over hand on an alternately slack and taut rope that had started to burn, and dipped them now and then into the freezing river as the crowd took in its breath all at once? Peter Lake knew. They took power from the fire. The closer they fought it, the stronger they became. The firemen knew that though it sometimes killed them, the fire gave them priceless gifts. ~ Mark Helprin

My only one!
In your last letter
"My head aches
my heart is stunned!"
you say.
"If they hang you,
if I lose you;"
you say;
"I can't live!"
You'll live my dearest wife,
like a black smoke in the wind my memory will vanish;
you'll live, the red-haired sister of my heart
at most one year it lasts
in the twentieth century
the grief of death..
Death
a dead body swinging on a rope.
My heart doesn't accept
such a death..
But
be sure that, my love,
if some pitiable gypsy's
hairy black spider like hand
slips the rope
around my neck,
to see the fear in my blue eyes
they'll look in vain
at Nâzım!

And I,
in the twilight of my last morning,
shall see my friends and you,
and carry only the grief
of an unfinished song
to the soil...
My wife!
Good hearted,
golden coloured,
with eyes sweeter than honey, my bee;
why did I write you
that they want to hang me,
the trial is in the first step
and they don't pluck like a turnip
the head of a man.
Come, forget them all.
These are so far away probabilities.
If you have some money
buy me a flannel underwear,
my sciatica is acting up.
And don't forget that always
there should be good thoughts in the mind
of a prisoner's wife. ~ Nâzım Hikmet Ran

But we are sailors - served on the Endeavor."

"Are you, now?" the ship's master asked skeptically. "Let me see yer hands."

The master examined Hadrian's palms, looking over the various calluses and rough places while grunting occasionally. "You must have spent most of your time in the galley. You've not done any serious rope work." He examined Royce's hands and raised an eyebrow at him. "Have you ever been on a ship before? It's certain you've never handled a sheet or a capstan."

"Royce here is a - you know - " Hadrian pointed up at the ship's rigging. "The guy who goes up there."

The master shook his head and laughed. "If you two are seamen, then I'm the Prince of Percepliquis!"

"Oh, but they are, Mr. Temple," a voice declared. Wyatt exited the forecastle and came jogging toward them. A bright white shirt offset his tawny skin and black hair. "I know these men, old mates of mine. The little one is Royce Melborn, as fine a topman as they come. And the big one is, ah …"

"Hadrian." Royce spoke up.

"Right, of course. Hadrian's a fine cook - he is, Mr. Temple."

Temple pointed toward Royce. "This one's a topman? Are you joking, Wyatt?"

"No, sir, he's one of the best."

Temple looked unconvinced.

"You can have him prove it to you, sir," Hadrian offered. "You could have him race your best up the ropes."

"You mean up the shrouds," Wyatt said, correcting h ~ Michael J. Sullivan

A guy's who has all the money he needs and never faced any hard times, he won't have any character. But when you've had it tough and you've had it rough and you thought you were at the end of the rope and you work your way out of it, that's the way you build character. ~ Bobby Bowden

Man is something that shall be overcome.Man is a rope,tied between beast and overman - a rope over an abyss.What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche