Shot Down Quotes

In late 1915 there appeared on the Western Front a German flier named Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, after his royal title and a penchant for painting his squadron's Fokker triwing fighters red. He was a natural born killer who shot down more than eighty enemy aircraft before himself being fatally brought down by ground fire ~ Winston Groom

I shot down some German planes and I got shot down myself, crashing in a burst of flames and crawling out, getting rescued by brave soldiers. ~ Roald Dahl

If you draw the gun and don't shoot right. you're shot down! ~ Tapan Ghosh

For a guy who's been shot down more than once, I'm pretty gun-shy. But for you, I would have tried a million times. I've got a hell of a crush on you, Sara Foster. ~ Devney Perry

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale. ~ Hermann Hesse

Gavin turned us to face Josh, a satisfied grin springing up when he noticed the condition of Josh's clothes.
"Thanks for the last-minute invitation, man." Josh chuckled, patting Gavin on the shoulder. "Shall I do the honors, Mr. Suave?"
"Sure thing, Frodo Baggins. By the way, I hear the Shire has impeccable dinner parties this time of year." The corners of Gavin's lips twitched and his eyebrows shot up as he gestured to a food stain of some sort near the collar of Josh's white shirt.
Josh's chin shot down to follow Gavin's amusement and he quickly tried to wipe away the crumbs. "Yeah, well ... you know how we hobbits like to eat. ~ Rachael Wade

In a certain sense, it's harder for men to say no to sex than it is for women. When a woman says no, nobody's feelings are hurt. Men expect to be shot down. But when a man says no, the woman feels as if he's just said she's fat and undesirable. That makes him feel like a jerk. ~ Adelle Waldman

His warm breath, smelling of clean spice, stroked her cheek and ear. A thrilling shiver coursed over her, the wound on her arm only a minor sting. Then his lips - those full, sensuous lips - grazed her jaw and the soft spot behind her ear, the hairs of his beard brushing her sensitive skin. Her shivers locked her muscles tight. A bolt of tantalizing heat shot down her center.
He leveraged closer, all that warrior brawn pressing hard against her side, linen rasping over skin, an exquisite feeling.
Yes. This. ~ Angela Quarles

If you're a woman, just make a freaking good movie. I don't believe in the women who say, 'It's too hard, I'm getting shot down.' ~ Katie Aselton

Who art thou then, O my soul!" (and here [Zarathustra] became frightened, for a sunbeam shot down from heaven upon his face."

"O heaven above me," said he sighing, and sat upright, "thou gazest at me? Thou hearkenest unto my strange soul?

When wilt thou drink this drop of dew that fell down upon all earthly things - when wilt thou drink this strange soul -
- When, thou well of eternity! thou joyous, awful, noontide abyss! when wilt thou drink my soul back into thee? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

After the plates are removed by the silent and swift waiting staff, General Çiller leans forward and says across the table to Güney, 'What's this I'm reading in Hürriyet about Strasbourg breaking up the nation?'
'It's not breaking up the nation. It's a French motion to implement European Regional Directive 8182 which calls for a Kurdish Regional Parliament.'
'And that's not breaking up the nation?' General Çiller throws up his hands in exasperation. He's a big, square man, the model of the military, but he moves freely and lightly 'The French prancing all over the legacy of Atatürk? What do you think, Mr Sarioğlu?'
The trap could not be any more obvious but Ayşe sees Adnan straighten his tie, the code for, Trust me, I know what I'm doing,
'What I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don't care. The age of Atatürk is over.'
Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye.
'Atatürk was father of the nation, unquestionably. No Atatürk, no Turkey. But, at some point every child has to leave his father. You have to stand on your own two feet and find out if you're a man. We're like kids that go on about how great their dads are; my dad's the strongest, the best wrestler, the fastest driver, the biggest moustache. And when someone squares up to us, or calls us a name or even looks at us squinty, we run back ~ Ian McDonald

As much as you know it, and you know the method, you can pretty much do what you want. No idea is going to be shot down. You just put it in the garbage later. You have to say the lines in many different ways. So they have a lot of material to work. ~ Antonio Banderas

When I think of our condition, my heart is heavy. I see men of my own race treated as outlaws and driven from country to country, or shot down like animals. ~ Chief Joseph

Father of the fatherless daughters, do not let your daughter's life pass you by. A daughter's love is so precious; you will never have to prove your love to her because she will accept you as you are. Do not be the reason why your daughter settles for a man for the wrong reasons. Do not be the reason why your daughter's self-esteem is shot down to the lowest level. Do not be the reason why your daughter's in a physical, verbal, and emotional abused relationship. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Guilty and innocent alike fell before the firing squads. In the mountains when government troops captured some of the alzados, the alzados would be shot down where they were captured, and doctors of forensic medicine would cut open their abdomens to try to find the rest of the guerrilla groups by seeing what the contents of the dead men's stomachs were and determining where such food might be found. ~ Armando Valladares

We spent a few hours struggling to come up with better explanations, but each suggestion was shot down almost as soon as it was made. The suggestions became wilder, eventually to the point of silliness. ~ Donald G. Firesmith

Nevertheless"

you've seen a strawberry
that's had a struggle; yet
was, where the fragments met,

a hedgehog or a star-
fish for the multitude
of seeds. What better food

than apple seeds - the fruit
within the fruit - locked in
like counter-curved twin

hazelnuts? Frost that kills
the little rubber-plant -
leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can't

harm the roots; they still grow
in frozen ground. Once where
there was a prickley-pear -

leaf clinging to a barbed wire,
a root shot down to grow
in earth two feet below;

as carrots from mandrakes
or a ram's-horn root some-
times. Victory won't come

to me unless I go
to it; a grape tendril
ties a knot in knots till

knotted thirty times - so
the bound twig that's under-
gone and over-gone, can't stir.

The weak overcomes its
menace, the strong over-
comes itself. What is there

like fortitude! What sap
went through that little thread
to make the cherry red! ~ Marianne Moore

The famous are balloons far up in the sky, to be envied for their quiet freedom or shot down as enemies. ~ Arthur Miller

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

If they (the young pilots) are on land, they would be bombed down, and if they are in the air, they would be shot down. That's sad ... Too sad ... To let the young men die beautifully, that's what Tokko is. To give beautiful death, that's called sympathy. ~ Takijiro Onishi

Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. The was the "war to end wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that 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 United State patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure".

Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month!

All that they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed ~ Smedley D. Butler

Emma looked up at him, expectant, and he shot her a quick wink. McKenna seemed intent on looking anywhere but at him, which only increased his patience. And his hopes. Finally, McKenna scraped together what looked like the remnants of a smile and met his gaze. And he knew her answer. "I'm certain Marshal Caradon's responsibilities keep him very busy, Emma." She addressed the child, yet aimed the words at him. "He's got an important job to do, and he has to get up very early in the morning to leave again. We don't want to interfere with his plans." In all his years of marshaling, he'd never been shot down so fast. ~ Tamera Alexander

My skin is hard when it comes to my music. But with my movies, I'm still a virgin in a lot of ways. I'm not used to being shot down for no reason. ~ Will Smith

I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

The busy 20th and 21st centuries have made Garfield's era seem remote and irrelevant, its leaders ridiculed for their very obscurity... to the generation of Americans then alive, though, their dramas, humanities, and dignity were a compelling part of daily life. For twenty years after the Civil War, America was led by a group of larger-than-life figures with clay feet who fought and raged and plied their craft with nerve and ambition while following a code of honor riddled with blind spots and inconsistencies; during that time, public involvement in politics reached levels far higher than today. Garfield held a special place: one of the most promising of his generation, shot down in his prime, martyred for taking a principled stand. ~ Kenneth D. Ackerman

I have had an experience which might perhaps be described as being shot down. At the same time, I call shot down only when one falls down. Today I got into trouble but I escaped with a whole skin. ~ Manfred Von Richthofen

I breathe her in deeply, before I begin my retraction. I hope nobody noticed that… my daughter's in tears, and I took a two second daddy time to suck in the feminine smells of a woman I just shot down, but whose body I'm at the same time craving.
Saxon, Falling in Silence ~ Criss Copp

Consider just a few of the expressions that fall under the umbrella ARGUMENT IS WAR, collected by the linguist George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson.
Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. His criticisms were right on target. I demolished his argument. I've never won an argument with her. You don't agree? Okay, shoot! If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out. She shot down all of my arguments.
Or the many variations of LOVE IS A JOURNEY:
Our relationship has hit a dead-end street. It's stalled; we can't keep going the way we've been going. Look how far we've come. It's been a long, bumpy road. We can't turn back now. We're at a crossroads. We may have to go our separate ways. The relationship isn't going anywhere. We're spinning our wheels. Our relationship is off the track. Our marriage is on the rocks. I'm thinking of bailing out. ~ Steven Pinker

she had insisted upon showing him her new showerbath. "You press that knob," she had said, "and look - " Innumerable needles of water shot down. He laughed aloud. They had sat on the edge of the bath together. But ~ Virginia Woolf

The girl was compulsively honest. In earlier years, Willa's every attempt to teach her the artful evasion known as "tact" would get shot down with "Mom, that's lying!" And Tig remained the child who announced when opening gifts at birthday parties, "Thanks, Grandma, I have one of these already and I don't really like it. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

If our planes were shot down, yes, they's wake me right away. If the other fellows' were shot down, why wake me up? ~ Ronald Reagan

When the corporation's investment capital becomes impatient for growth, good money becomes bad money because it triggers a subsequent cascade of inevitable incorrect decisions. Innovators who seek funding for the disruptive innovations that could ultimately fuel the company's growth with a high probability of success now find that their trial balloons get shot down because they can't get big enough fast enough. Managers of most disruptive businesses can't credibly project that the business will become very big very fast, because new-market disruptions need to compete against nonconsumption and must follow an emergent strategy process. Compelling them to project big numbers forces them to declare a strategy that confidently crams the innovation into a large, existing, and obvious market whose size can be statistically substantiated. This means competing against consumption. ~ Clayton M Christensen

Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president, ~ Wesley Clark

As each brigade emerged from the woods, from 50 to 100 guns opened upon it, tearing great gaps in its ranks; but the heroes pressed on and were shot down by reserves at the guns. It was not war, it was murder. ~ Daniel Harvey Hill

Every time a bomb exploded, every anti-personnel weapon that sent its hundreds of particles tearing through the sift tissues of soft bodies, every helicopter that was shot down with its crew, every plane hit with a missile: brrrring, brrrring, on the great cash register in the homeland bank. It was all profit. It would have to be replaced. It was the perfect form of fantastically expensive and forced consumption, paid for by taxes. ~ Marge Piercy

When one has shot down one's first, second or third opponent, then one begins to find out how the trick is done. ~ Manfred Von Richthofen

My father-in-law was a pilot. During World War II, he was shot down in a B-17 over Belgium. With the help of the French Resistance, he made his way through Occupied France and back to his base in England. ~ Bobbie Ann Mason

They biggest man with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest man with the smallest mind-think big anyway. ~ John C. Maxwell

One thing the American defense establishment has traditionally understood very well is that countries don't win wars just by being braver than the other side, or freer, or slightly preferred by God. The winners are usually the guys who get 5% fewer of their planes shot down, or use 5% less fuel, or get 5% more nutrition into their infantry at 95% of the cost. ~ Jordan Ellenberg

What could be worse than dead? But all around him, the evidence was clear. Only weeks before, the NYPD had shot down a fifteen-year-old black boy, a student, for next to nothing. The shooting had started the riots, pitting young black men and some black women against the police force. The news made it sound like the fault lay with the blacks of Harlem. The violent, the crazy, the monstrous black people who had the gall to demand that their children not be gunned down in the streets. ~ Yaa Gyasi

One problem people have is that they lie to themselves. You may think you are more talented then the next guy. Which is exactly what the next guy thinks as well. Rarely is talent enough. You have to find ways to make yourself stand out. You do so by playing to your strengths and making people aware of those strengths. Always remember that no matter how many times you get shot down, you will get smarter, better and you only have to be right once to be successful. ~ Mark Cuban

DPRK translates to Democratic People's Republic of Korea - and if the words Democratic and Republic sound like a good thing, well, it's oxymoronic because the Korea we're talking about here is the communist one in the North, and when I said the pastor's father was their guest, what I really meant is he was shot down, captured, tortured, and held prisoner by a depraved enemy in what today can only be described as a failed state. ~ Tucker Elliot

The words "everyone get along" were the main culprit in and of itself. It was an accursed phrase.

Those words emphasized the problem. They were Geass.

It was an evil law imposed by teachers in a narrow­-minded world. For the sake of complying with that law, they forcefully established the tactic known as "turning a blind eye" to the friction that inevitably ensued. It showed in how they handled personality types that didn't adhere to the mainstream. There were cases when you have to deal with those you hated, too. In those situations, if you spelled out "I hate you" or "I don't want to put up with you" to them, things could possibly change. There was also a chance things could improve or open up to negotiation. But that became impossible when you stifled your problems and only smoothed over the surface issues.

It was tacit approval of the lazy deceit known as 'tone policing'. That's why I shot down Hayama's words. ~ Wataru Watari

At first blush, it seems that the young people who were shot down in the parking lot at the base of Blanket Hill gave up their lives for a dream that died with them. ~ William Kunstler

I just want to fly under the radar, because when you start to make yourself into a big deal, that's when you get shot down. ~ John Green

Of course, with the increasing number of aeroplanes one gains increased opportunities for shooting down one's enemies, but at the same time, the possibility of being shot down one's self increases. ~ Manfred Von Richthofen

Many women do not want to venture out into the 'opinion world' until they are certain of themselves, the facts, and that they are right. They are afraid of being shot down. The result is often silence. ~ Madeleine M. Kunin

What you want to do is, you want to get away from people being afraid to show their work, which is the first thing, because they don't want to be shot down. ~ Dennis Muren

If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed. ~ Langston Hughes

It seems like you are used to blowing down my house of cards that I carefully built. I isolate myself and cried a lot of tears because of you. My heart has been battered and broken too many times because of you. Honestly, my self-esteem is shot down as low as I can go because of you. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Under their discretion, lies, secrets, crimes and even failure are nothing but the spice of one's youth. And in their corrupt ways, they discover something peculiar about failure. They conclude that while their own failures are generally a part of relishing in youth, others' failures should be shot down as just failures and nothing more. ~ Wataru Watari

The big difference between the radio show and the TV work is that I don't have to work by committee on the radio show. I'm the DJ; I can play what I want and suffer or get praised by that. With a TV show, it's much more of a collaboration, and the song that I might think is perfect may get shot down and vice versa. ~ Gary Calamar

You're gonna meet tons of different people throughout your life, and it's totally worth it to stick your neck out a little bit if you like someone. Even when you get shot down, it seems really devastating, but it's not in the long run. ~ Pete Wentz

Nothing said Clothes to Wear When You Want to Impress a Guy You Initially Shot Down, But Now You Realise You Like Him and Want to Get Him Back. Where was the outfit for that? ~ Kristin Walker

Hitler is a dancing dervish. He must be shot down. ~ Henning Von Tresckow

If you want to be shot down by the Arrows of Eros, you should get rid of the iron shield called Logic! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

So now, Mrs. Ramsay thought, she could return to that dream land, that unreal but fascinating place, the Manning's drawing-room at Marlow twenty years ago; where one moved about without haste or anxiety, for there was no future to worry about. She knew what had happened to them, what to her. It was like reading a good book again, for she knew the end of that story, since it had happened twenty years ago, and life, which shot down even from this dining-room table in cascades, heaven knows where, was sealed up there, and lay, like a lake, placidly between its banks. ~ Virginia Woolf

When I returned from the restroom and Jase saw how much I was bleeding, he began to grill the doctor with every question imaginable. She remained completely stoic, no matter what he said. Every time he asked her a question, she provided the same measured response: "I will not know until I begin to operate."
She began trying to offer various common medical possibilities for this incident, such as a ruptured cyst and other diagnoses. Jase shot down every explanation with the power and speed he would use to blast a duck out of the sky with a shotgun. He was never disrespectful toward her, but he was intense.
Due to the pain I was experiencing, I did not realize exactly what was going on, but I did know I was lying on the bed while the doctor and my husband were in a Western movie standoff on either side of me. These two strong personalities were about to collide, and I was in the direct line of fire! At one point, the telephone in my pre-op room rang. Without saying a word, the doctor picked up the phone, stretched it across my bed, and handed it to Jase, never taking her eyes off his. To say that one could cut the tension in the room with a knife is a complete understatement.
I was not happy about Jase's confrontational manner, but at the same time, I was grateful that he was asking the questions I never thought to ask and telling the doctor exactly how he wanted her to treat me. "Like your own daughter," he said.
Jase clearly communicated that he wanted t ~ Missy Robertson

A small number of peasants - brave peasants - shot down two Apaches ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

It is well known that women carry poison in their pockets. Did you expect a gun? A woman with a gun would be just another policeman. We fall in love with the convicts, remember that. Policemen marry girls from the neighborhood, high school looms over their unions, the first uniform is her prom dress and his black bow tie and white shirt. But the girls are thinking of poison, thinking of poison as the lights go out on the dresser where the revolver has been placed with care for the night. The black shoes, the fine, thick serge of the coat, shoulders and thighs of stallions. And the policemen are usually shot down by someone out of shape, thin, thin, nothing but living bones. Remember that. ~ Elizabeth Hardwick

Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it. ~ Colin Powell

I remember when I was shot down in that war. I remember how terrified I was. And it made me feel close to my family, and to God, and to life, and I was scared. ~ George H. W. Bush

One of the best things about having a blog is that you've got a place to run your craziest ideas up the flagpole and see just how quickly they get shot down. ~ Steven D. Levitt

To feel myself. Light as a feather free as a bird, though long since fit to be shot down. Unleash the dog with no sense of shame. Become this or that. Awaken the dead. Wear my pal Baldander's rags for a change. Lose my way on a single-minded quest. ~ Gunter Grass

I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren't meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever. ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. ~ Frank Zappa

They looked like good people, but deep down they were pieces of shit. They often found they way into politics, and they talked about God, family values and country. They were the new cavaliers of the Catholic culture. ~ Niccolo Ammaniti

I know life isn't always about bright colors and fireworks. Sometimes the colors aren't always clear, and our days get so hard they hurt. But settle down with me, hold my hand, let me kiss you. All I want is to know you more.
Better than anyone else has before. ~ Courtney Peppernell

Oh no, hon we were too late. Tiger-boy done pissed down the wrong honey tree and got all the bees, or in this case, bears, going wild. (Fury) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Craftsman Ilmarinen wept
Every evening for his woman,
Weeping sleepless through the nights
And fasting through the days;
In the early hours complaining,
Every morning sighing for her,
Lamenting for his lovely lost one,
For his dear one in the grave.
For a month he swung no hammer,
Did not touch the copper handle,
and the clinking forge was silent.

Said the craftsman Ilmarinen:
"I poor fellow, do not know
How to live or how survive;
Sitting up or lying down
Nights are long and time is tedious.
I am troubled, low in spirit.

'Lonely are the nights now,lonely
And the mornings dreary, dreary.
In my sleeping I am troubled,
But the waking is the saddest.
It's not for evening that I'm lonely,
Not for morning that I'm dreary,
Not for olden times lamenting,
But I'm lonely for my loved one,
Dreary for the missing of her,
Lamenting for my dark-browed lovely.

'Often in these days it happens,
Happens in my midnight dreaming
that I stretch my hand out touching,
touching something that is nothing... ~ Elias Lönnrot

I will not mention the name (and what bits of it I happen to give here appear in decorous disguise) of that man, that Franco-Hungarian writer... I would rather not dwell upon him at all, but I cannot help it - he is surging up from under my pen. Today one does not hear much about him; and this is good, for it proves that I was right in resisting his evil spell, right in experiencing a creepy chill down my spine whenever this or that new book of his touched my hand. The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life story to the dash between two dates. Lean and arrogant, with some poisonous pun ever ready to fork out and quiver at you, and with a strange look of expectancy in his dull brown veiled eyes, this false wag had, I daresay, an irresistible effect on small rodents. Having mastered the art of verbal invention to perfection, he particularly prided himself on being a weaver of words, a title he valued higher than that of a writer; personally, I never could understand what was the good of thinking up books, of penning things that had not really happened in some way or other; and I remember once saying to him as I braved the mockery of his encouraging nods that, were I a writer, I should allow only my heart to have imagination, and for the rest rely upon memory, that long-drawn sunset shadow of one's personal truth.

I had known his books before I knew him; a faint disgust was already replacing the ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Nothing like a cheap shot, right?' He snorted blood from his nose. 'I'm disappointed. I thought even terrorists had principles.'
'Can it,' Nasira said, towering over him with her P90 leveled at his head. 'If we need patriotic paramoralisms, we'll give Jack Bauer a call.'
Denton grimaced, pulled himself upright. 'And if I need overblown alliteration, I'll give you a call. ~ Nathan M. Farrugia

The Constitution of our country [was] formed by the Fathers of liberty ... Exalt the standard of Democracy! Down with that of priestcraft, and let all the people say Amen! that the blood of our fathers may not cry from the ground against us. Sacred is the memory of that blood which bought for us our liberty. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

Hudson blinked, but then he leaned down tentatively and gave the doorknob an obliging sniff. "It smells like...metal?" he said.
"Not-I don't know-a bit saturnine?" asked Jackaby, "with a hint of stygian exigency?"
"You know what any of those words mean?" Hudson asked, looking to me for help.
"I think one of them might be a sort of cheese. ~ William Ritter

Big bad merc, down with a basic hip toss. In your place I'd be blushing. ~ Ilona Andrews

Life is literally a process of one creature eating another, whether it's bacteria breaking down plants or animals, plants strangling each other, animals going for the throat, or viruses attacking animals. "All of nature is a conjugation of the verb 'to eat,'" in the words of William Ralph Inge. ~ Lierre Keith

Nonsense can be an ingenious architect of sense, as it may turn things upside down and, so doing, sharpen our perception, stir our imagination, clear our mind and refine our judgment. Like poetry might interlock with science, and emotion with intellect, so are sense and nonsense relentlessly interacting and this interplay enriches the filigree of our thinking pattern. ("Drunken ship" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

A much better, albeit less obvious way to gain satisfaction is not by working to satisfy our desires but by working to master them. In particular, we need to take steps to slow down the desire-formation process within us. Rather than working to fulfill whatever desires we find in our head, we need to work at preventing certain desires from forming and eliminating many of the desires that have formed. And rather than wanting new things, we need to work at wanting the things we already have. This ~ William B. Irvine

I hymn and bless Your uncountable compassion and philanthropy, as You desired to number me with Your chosen servants. Look down, now, upon me the lowly one, O God and Master, Lord of mercy, Ruler of all and All-powerful One, hearken to my prayer, and fulfill my entreaties in praise. ~ Marina Of Aguas Santas

Mrs Anderson was dead.
Nothing flashy, just old age - she went to bed one night and never woke up. The news said it was a peaceful, dignified way to die, which I suppose is technically true, but the three days it took for someone to realize they hadn't seen her in a while removed most of the dignity from the situation. Her daughter eventually dropped by to check on her and found her corpse three days rotted and stinking like roadkill. And the worst part isn't the rotting, it's the three days - three whole days before anyone cared enough to say, 'Wait, where's that old lady who lives down by the canal?' There's not a lot of dignity in that ~ Dan Wells

He could also be terrible romantic and thoughtful. My job was a real challenge. The work was difficult and the boss demanding: he thought nothing of calling or emailing at odd hours, even on the weekend; you ignored him at your peril.
There was a point at which everything got to me. And it was exactly at that moment that Chris stepped in and planned a weekend getaway. He found a little cabin out in the woods where there was no cell phone reception-yes!-and without telling anyone, we made our getaway.
Almost. I actually called the boss and told him my cell reception was giving out, and so I wouldn't be able to check messages, something he expected even on the weekends.
As soon as we got to the cabin, I headed to the bedroom. Inside, I opened my suitcase and changed into sexy white Victoria's Secret-style lingerie, complete with corset and thigh-highs. Feeling a little shy and silly, I walked out and leaned against the doorway of the living room where he was sitting.
"Hey!"
"Yeah?" he mumbled from the couch, not bothering to look up from the magazine he was reading.
"Turn around," I said.
He turned around-slowly at first. But as soon as he caught sight of me in that lingerie, he hopped clear over the couch and chased me down the hall to the bedroom. I squealed and giggled the whole way. ~ Taya Kyle

Water runs down hill concisely. There is no quibbling about it. It does not have to run up hill in order to be entertaining. Man has always followed its course with fascination. The soul of man may reveal its mysteries through direct expression, simple speech, simple gesture, simple painting, just as the soul of the brook is expressed in full simplicity and economy. ~ Robert Henri

Your idiocy has reached epic heights. You're the king of the jackwagons, Campbell Montgomery. You're going to go down in the books as a first class donkey face with a pile of shit on your head. ~ Brynne Asher

The truth is you already know what it's like. You already know
the difference between the size and speed of everything that flashes
through you and the tiny inadequate bit of it all you can ever let anyone
know. As though inside you is this enormous room full of what
seems like everything in the whole universe at one time or another and
yet the only parts that get out have to somehow squeeze out through
one of those tiny keyholes you see under the knob in older doors. As if
we are all trying to see each other through these tiny keyholes.

But it does have a knob, the door can open. But not in the way you
think. But what if you could? Think for a second - what if all the infinitely dense and shifting worlds of stuff inside you every moment of your life turned out now to be somehow fully open and expressible afterward,
after what you think of as you has died, because what if afterward
now each moment itself is an infinite sea or span or passage of time in
which to express it or convey it, and you don't even need any organized
English, you can as they say open the door and be in anyone else's
room in all your own multiform forms and ideas and facets? Because
listen - we don't have much time, here's where Lily Cache slopes
slightly down and the banks start getting steep, and you can just make
out the outlines of the unlit sign for the farmstand that's never open
anymore, the last si ~ David Foster Wallace

Okay, listen. From what Shade said, Roag got toasted like a burnt marshmallow. He would have been nearly destroyed, right down to his junk." Wraith grinned. "Which is really fucking funny. ~ Larissa Ione

We do not need you. Do not come unless I call you." Ricard crawled out of bed and shut the door as the steam men moved down the hall. "Dumb things." Ricard - As Timeless As Stone ~ Maeve Alpin

I don't expect everything to be handed to me. Just set it down wherever. ~ Darynda Jones

Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with. ~ Ayn Rand

How Could You Not - for Jane Kenyon

It is a day after many days of storms.
Having been washed and washed, the air glitters;
small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower
visible against the firs douses the crocuses.

We knew it would happen one day this week.
Now, when I learn you have died, I go
to the open door and look across at New Hampshire
and see that there, too, the sun is bright
and clouds are making their shadowy ways along the horizon;

and I think: How could it not have been today?
In another room, Keri Te Kanawa is singing
the Laudate Dominum of Mozart, very faintly,
as if in the past, to those who once sat
in the steel seat of the old mowing machine,
cheerful descendent of the scythe of the grim reaper,

and drew the cutter bars little
reciprocating triangles through the grass
to make the stalks lie down in sunshine.
Could you have walked in the dark early this morning
and found yourself grown completely tired
of the successes and failures of medicine,
of your year of pain and despair remitted briefly
now and then by hope that had that leaden taste?

Did you glimpse in first light the world as you loved it
and see that, now, it was not wrong to die
and that, on dying, you would leave
your beloved in a day like paradise?

Near sunrise did you loosen your hold a little?
How could you not ~ Galway Kinnell

A lot of Democrats are not that upset with Howard Dean. Howard Dean gets out here and he says these inflammatory things, and he doesn't apologize. He doesn't back down a little bit. ~ Gwen Ifill

I'm very down-to-earth. I think I'm still 'street'. ~ Gerard Butler

The earlier stuff is more like "this is happening to me," but now there are more songs that are accusatory or something, or more declaratory. I don't know where that voice comes from, like, "I've been down the road, we've been there and done that." That's sort of like a tougher style, or a less vulnerable style. ~ Stephen Malkmus

The exact process you use to build courage isn't important. What's important is that you consciously do it. Just as your muscles will atrophy if you don't regularly stress them, your courage will atrophy if you don't consistently challenge yourself to face down your fears. In the absence of this kind of conscious conditioning, you'll automatically become weak in both body and mind. If you aren't regularly exercising your courage, then you are strengthening your fear by default; there is no middle ground. ~ Steve Pavlina

The human emotional system can be broken down into roughly two elements:
fear and love.
Love is of the soul.
Fear is of the personality. ~ Gary Zukav

'Long Black Train' was inspired by a vision that I had of a long, black train running down this track way out in the middle of nowhere. I could see people standing out to the sides of this track watching this train go by. As I was walking, experiencing this vision, I kept asking myself, 'What does this vision mean and what is this train?' ~ Josh Turner

There were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disk rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share - black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun. ~ Willa Cather

Other men look up and down, left and right; but men like us are different. We are visionaries. ~ Eoin Colfer

And Jazz snapped.
He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person.
Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze.
In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father).
Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am. ~ Barry Lyga

When fighting zombies, the only comfort one can have
if, indeed, it can be called a "comfort"
is knowing where the zombies are. "They are over there, and we are over here. When they come at us, we're going to shoot them down. That's how it's going to work. They're just zombies, and they're way over there. No way are we going to f*** this up." But when zombies then unexpectedly pop up behind you
Bam!
the whole battle plan's not so cut and dried, is it, Mr. Tough Guy? ~ Scott Kenemore

Young Surrey now lays down his knife and begins to complain. Noblemen, he laments, are not respected as they were in the days when England was great. The present king keeps about himself a collection of men of base degree, and no good will come of it. Cranmer creeps forward in his chair, as if to intervene, but Surrey gives him a glare that says, you're exactly who I mean, archbishop. ~ Hilary Mantel