Single Quotes

Eternity might be captured in a single kiss. ~ Thea Harrison

Just when I despaired -- she was there, filling me as a melody fills a cottage. I was with her, running beside the Acis when we were a child. I knew the ancient villa moated by a dark lake, the view through the dusty windows of the belvedere, and the secret space in the odd angle between two rooms where we sat at noon to read by candlelight. I knew the life of the Autarch's court, where poison waited in a diamond cup. I learned what it was for one who had never seen a cell or felt a whip to be a prisoner of the torturers, what dying meant, and death.

I learned that I had been more to her than I had ever guessed, and at last fell into a sleep in which my dreams were all of her. Not memories merely -- memories I had possessed in plenty before. I held her poor, cold hands in mine, and I no longer wore the rags of an apprentice, nor the fuligin of a journeyman. We were one, naked and happy and clean, and we knew that she was no more and that I still lived, and we struggled against neither of those things, but with woven hair read from a single book and talked and sang of other matters. ~ Gene Wolfe

When I was a nursemaid at the home of the landowners, a nun who happened to pass once gave me something square and white.Timidly I licked it and discovered that it was sweet and delicious. I realize now that it must have been a sugar cube;but still, more than twenty years later, I remember clearly the joy I felt then. It's not just children; everyone seems to be deeply touched by unexpected joy brought to them by others and is unable to forget it.
That child will be grown up by now, and if he hasn't forgotten me, whenever he sees a crying child he'll want to say a kind word and wipe the kid's nose. And when that kid grows up, he'll do the same. To do something kind for another is never a bad feeling; it fosters a spirit of caring for other people. And who knows,after a hundrend years, human beings may even learn to cooperate with one another...Yes, that was it: I'd try to teach children that if they felt glad when someone gave them a single piece of candy,then they in turn should give to others. ~ Sayo Masuda

If you are married, then accept that. Accept the husband that God has given you. If you are single, accept your singleness and take it as if today was the last day of your life. Don't be looking constantly to the future. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Major League Baseball is the best league in the world, full of capable hitters up and down every single lineup. ~ Ron Darling

Real life is all beginnings. Days, weeks, children, journeys, marriages, inventions. Even a murder is the beginning of a criminal. Perhaps even a spree. Everything is prologue. Every story has a stutter. It just keeps starting and starting until you decide to shut the camera off. Half the time you don't even realise that what you're choosing for breakfast is the beginning of a story that won't pan out till you're sixty and staring at the pastry that made you a widower. No, love, in real life you can get all the way to death and never have finished one single story. Or never even get one so much as half-begun. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Being born doesn't make a single soul important. But you were important when I met you, that girl who dressed as a boy, who taught herself to shoot true, who dreamed and saved and wanted so badly. That girl was someone who had made herself matter. She was someone I liked. What the hell has happened since you came here that she is so worthless to you? What's happened that only my brother's approval and some power you never needed before can make you important? That's why I didn't want to bring you into this revolution, Amani. Because I didn't want to watch the Blue-Eyed Bandit get unmade by a prince without a kingdom. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

Guilt is something I live with on a daily basis, but it gets worse on days like today. Today I get to play stalker to a woman I've been in love with for roughly one hundred and seventy years.
A woman I cannot have.
A woman who hates me with every single fiber of her being.
Go me. ~ Annie Anderson

I always say that I'm an artist who works with pictures and words, so I think that the different aspects of my activity, whether it's writing criticism, or doing visual work that incorporates writing, or teaching, or curating, is all of a single cloth, and I don't make any separation in terms of those practices. ~ Barbara Kruger

A brick represents a single unit, weak and useless alone, but useful and powerful when organized and grouped with other bricks. So it is with man. ~ Jarod Kintz

Oh! you shall see how well I know how to love! I can only love; I know only how to love! With moderate faculties, we can yet do much when we center them on a single object. ~ Jeanne Julie Eleonore De Lespinasse

I only let myself think about this moment one time on the way here. I told
myself if you gave me another chance, I would take this slow and somehow prove to you that you're the only one that ever mattered to me. I'm willing to spend the rest of my life showing you how much you mean to me. I'll work every single day to be the man you deserve, but let me make love to you tonight. Let me know what it's like to feel you again. Please. ~ Kindle Alexander

A single opinion is comfortable. Comfort is hostile to change. Progress is uncomfortable because it changes the comfort. ~ Thomas Vato

Half of all broccoli grown commercially in America today is a single variety- Marathon- notable for it's high yield. The overwhelming majority of the chickens raised for meat in America are the same hybrid, the Cornish cross; more than 99 percent of turkeys are the Broad-Breasted Whites. ~ Michael Pollan

We are like chess players who are trying to predict the opponent's future moves, but in this case, we are dealing with life itself. True masters do not play the game on a single chessboard, but on multiple chessboards at the same time. And what's the difference between grandmasters and masters? Surprises. The moves that cannot be predicted by the opponent. Life can play a simultaneous game with seven billion people at the same time and it can take each and every one of us by surprise. And we still believe we are capable of winning, because we can predict three of four moves ahead. We are insignificant. ~ Jaka Tomc

There is scarcely a single joy or sorrow within the experience of our fellow-creatures which we have not tasted; yet the belief, in the good and beautiful has never forsaken us. It has been medicine to us in sickness, richness in poverty, and the best part of all that ever delighted us in health and success. ~ Leigh Hunt

In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references! ~ Bart D. Ehrman

As for the Republicans
how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical 'American heritage' ... ) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

I've learned that asking ourselves not just what we want to be, but who we want to be is important at every stage of our lives, not just when we're starting out in the world. That's because in a way, we're starting out fresh in the world every single day. ~ Maria Shriver

How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays; And their uncessant labours see Crown'd from some single herb or tree. Whose short and narrow verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all flow'rs and all trees do close To weave the garlands of repose. ~ Andrew Marvell

Interesting, but she could see that the boy didn't have a single lie in him. A very rare condition, especially for the male of the species. ~ Alice Hoffman

Take Canada again: why does Canada have the health-care program it does? Up until the mid-1960s, Canada and the United States had the same capitalist health service: extremely inefficient, tons of bureaucracy, huge administrative costs, millions of people with no insurance coverage―exactly what would be amplified in the United States by Clinton's proposals for "managed competition" [put forward in 1993].21 But in 1962 in Saskatchewan, where the N.D.P. is pretty strong and the unions are pretty strong, they managed to put through a kind of rational health-care program of the sort that every industrialized country in the world has by now, except the United States and South Africa. Well, when Saskatchewan first put through that program, the doctors and the insurance companies and the business community were all screaming―but it worked so well that pretty soon all the other Provinces wanted the same thing too, and within a couple years guaranteed health care had spread over the entire country. And that happened largely because of the New Democratic Party in Canada, which does provide a kind of cover and a framework within which popular organizations like unions, and then later things like the feminist movement, have been able to get together and do things. ~ Noam Chomsky

The issues facing working women and their families are closest to my heart. I decided to focus intently on the challenges military wives face because they juggle the same pressures as their nonmilitary peers, all while coping as single parents while their loved ones are overseas. I wanted to help make their voices heard. ~ Michelle Obama

She came to this California university for one reason, she reminds herself: the paycheck. Although every time the paycheck arrives the amount taken out in taxes for a single woman with no dependents is so huge it stuns her. The money starts to feel like an insult: For this, she thinks, I've uprooted my life? Whatever money she might save, moreover, she usually spends trying to console herself. And it is hard to make any job financially worth its difficulties, she realizes, when you're constantly running out to J. C. Penney's to buy bathmats. ~ Lorrie Moore

In my age group I don't know a single woman who is as successful as I am. I am the total exception. You can be very proud of it. But you are also very isolated. ~ Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

I strive to do my best every single time and I think that's something the skate community knows about me and appreciates. ~ Mike Vallely

The equal and sustainable right of access to the Earth's bounty seems one of the most transcendent truths a human being can contemplate. Yet, this right is missing from the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The fact that this single principle is violated on an ongoing basis is quite possibly the root cause of many, if not most, other human rights violations. ~ Martin Adams

During the whole campaign, from June 27 to July 31, there has been no shirking or hesitation, to tiring on the part of a single man so far as I have seen; the brigade commanders reported none. ~ John Buford

It suddenly occurred to both Driggs and Lex, in that very same instant, that neither of them wanted anything more in the world than to tear off every single piece of each other's clothes and make wild, passionate, messy adolescent love under the radiant glow of the full moon.
Their chests rose and fell. A few seconds passed.
"I'm going to sleep," Driggs panted, clambering off the roof.
"Me too," Lex huffed, right behind him.
And without another word they fled to their rooms, slammed the doors, and threw themselves into bed, where they both spent the next five hours dazedly contemplating their respective ceilings. ~ Gina Damico

I lay on her bed with my arms wrapped around her, wondering how on earth we'd managed to end up like this. I'm not sure what'd been on my mind when I came to see her, but this wasn't it! Strange the way things turn out. When I'd come into her room I'd been burning up with desire to smash her and everything around her. And yet here she was, asleep and still holding on to my arms like I was a life-raft or something. There's not a single millimetre between her body and mine. I could move my hands and, and, anything I liked. Caress or strangle. Kill or cure. Her or me. Me or her. ~ Malorie Blackman

I was standing amid floor-to-ceiling shelves of books in wonder and awe when my view of stories suddenly and forever changed. There were enormous piles of books lying in corners. Books covered the walls. Books even lined the staircases as you went up from one floor to the next. It was as if this used bookstore was not just a place for selling used books; it was like the infrastructure itself was made up of books. There were books to hold more books, stories built out of stories.

I was standing in Daedalus Books in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I had recently read Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book. I was alive with the desire to read. But at that particular moment, my glee turned to horror. For whatever reason, the truth of the numbers suddenly hit me. The year before, I had read about thirty books. For me, that was a new record. But then I started counting. I was in my early twenties, and with any luck I'd live at least fifty more years. At that rate, I'd have about 1,500 books in me, give or take.

There were more books than that on the single wall I was staring at.

That's when I had a realization of my mortality. My desire outpaced reality. I simply didn't have the life to read what I wanted to read.

Suddenly my choices in that bookstore became a profound act of deciding. The Latin root of the word decide - cise or cide - is to "cut off' or "kill." The idea is that to choose anything means to kill off other options you m ~ Justin Whitmel Earley

Bodybuilding has been the tool that single-handedly taught a little black boy from the projects to use his mind to achieve success. it taught me to see things for what they can be. I had 17-inch arms; I imagined them to be 24 inches. The power of my mind allowed me to achieve what I imagined. ~ Kai Greene

I'm OK with being single, but I'm not OK when the time comes where I have to move my furniture around and to change the high ceiling light balls ... ~ Hiroko Sakai

You know what they didn't do, though? They didn't, not one single time, say, "What were you thinking?!" Not because they knew or because they understood - I really don't think they did. They didn't ask that because I sure as hell didn't stab myself in the back, and when a radical extremist stabs someone in the back, the only person at fault is the radical extremist. ~ Hank Green

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought. ~ H.L. Mencken

One of the things I would immediately do [as Commander in Chief ], in addition to defeating them here at home, is bring back the warrior class - Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President [Barack] Obama things that he didn't want to hear. ~ Carly Fiorina

Every single song that I've listened to is in my memory forever. ~ Will.i.am

This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that's what I had. ~ Steve Jobs

I gaped. "You are not seriously that chauvinistic?"
"Hmmm ... " He stroked his chin dramatically. "Maybe not in real life." Hillbilly again. "But as your fake husband ... yes, I think I am."
I eyed him up and down. "I need to call the Guinness Book of Records or Gray's Anatomy or something, because I am standing here looking at the single largest asshole ever known to man. ~ Kristin Walker

mad maddie: I GOT ACCEPTED TO SANTA CRUZ!!!!
SnowAngel: omg!!!
zoegirl: maddie!!!! yay!!!!!
mad maddie: i know! it's incredible!
SnowAngel: *squeals and hugs sweet maddie*
SnowAngel: tell us every single detail!!!
mad maddie: well, i got home from school and saw this big thick envelope on the kitchen counter, with "Santa Cruz Admissions Office" as the return address. i got really fidgety and just started screaming, right there in the house. no one was there but me, so i could be as loud as i wanted.
zoegirl: omg!!!
mad maddie: i took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but my hands were shaking. i opened the envelope and pulled out a folder that said, "Welcome to Santa Cruz!" inside was a letter that said, "Dear Madigan. You're in!"
mad maddie: isn't that cool? i LOVE that, that instead of being all prissy and formal, they're like, "you're in! yahootie!"
SnowAngel: oh maddie, i am sooooo happy for u!
mad maddie: i ran out to my car all jumping and hopping around and drove to ian's, cuz i knew neither of u would be home yet. i showed him my letter and he hugged me really hard and lifted me into the air. it was AWESOME.
zoegirl: i'm so proud of u, maddie!
SnowAngel: me 2! ~ Lauren Myracle

Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures-in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Any man can fuck me. But Alexei fucks my mind. My heart. My soul. He lights me up and burns me down. Every single time. ~ A. Zavarelli

The young man had lost his mentor, his home, and his brother, all because of the actions of a single night. ~ Jeff Grubb

She was mined for the children
in her, one daughter, then another,
a short seam, quick to clay,
and not a single son to save them. ~ Robert Wrigley

Single motherhood is an amazing thing; it's a blessing. ~ Kelly Cutrone

I went to the window, opening the pierced shutters to look out over the sleeping city. The moon was waxing and hung half-full like some exotic silver jewel just over the horizon. From the courtyard below rose the scent of jasmine on the cool night air. A slender vine had wound its way up to the balcony, and I reached out, pinching off a single creamy white blossom. I lifted it to my nose, drinking in the thick sweetness of it as it filled my head, sending my senses reeling. There was something narcotic about that jasmine, something carnal and ethereal at the same time. I crushed the petals between my fingers, taking the scent onto my skin. It was not a fragrance to wear alone. It was too rich, too heady, too full of sensuality and promise. It was a fragrance for silken cushions and damp naked flesh and moonlit beds. I rubbed at my fingers, but the scent clung tightly, keeping me company as I sat in the window, listening to a song I had almost forgot and thinking of Gabriel Starke and the five years that stretched barrenly between us. ~ Deanna Raybourn

Words have a genealogy and it's easier to trace the evolution of a single word than the evolution of a language. ~ Daniel Dennett

And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzling over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment. Thus, like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a happiness of their own. ~ Hermann Hesse

I know there are days when even one single positive thought feels like too much effort, but you must develop an unconditional love for life. You must never lose your childish curiosity for the possibilities in every single day. Who you can be, what you can see, what you can feel and where it can lead you. Be in love with your life, everything about it. The sadness and the joys, the struggles and the lessons, your flaws and strengths, what you lose and what you gain. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

When I stopped viewing girls as potential girlfriends and started treating them as sisters in Christ, I discovered the richness of true friendship. When I stopped worrying about who I was going to marry and began to trust God's timing, I uncovered the incredible potential of serving God as a single. . . .

I believe the time has come for Christians, male and female, to own up to the mess we've left behind in our selfish pursuit of short-term romance. Dating may seem an innocent game, but as I see it, we are sinning against each other. What excuse will we have when God asks us to account for our actions and attitudes in relationships? If God sees a sparrow fall (Matthew 10:29), do you think He could possibly overlook the broken hearts and scarred emotions we cause in relationships based on selfishness?

Everyone around us may be playing the dating game. But at the end of our lives, we won't answer to everyone. We'll answer to God. . . .

Long before Seventeen magazine ever gave teenagers tips on dating, people did things very differently.

At the turn of the twentieth century, a guy and girl became romantically involved only if they planned to marry. If a young man spent time at a girl's home, family and friends assumed that he intended to propose to her. But shifting attitudes in culture and the arrival of the automobile brought radical changes. The new "rules" allowed people to indulge in all the thrills of romantic love without having ~ Joshua Harris

In my opinion, the greatest single failure of American education is that students come away unable to distinguish between a symbol and the thing the symbol stands for. ~ Paul Lutus

You should definitely have a travel agent. Why go through all the hassle of dealing with airlines, hotels, and rental-car agencies yourself, only to see the arrangements get all screwed up, when with just a single phone call you can have a trained professional screw them up for you? ~ Dave Barry

What businesses really need is to build connections that last, connections that transcend a single product or marketing campaign, connections that span an extended period. ~ Kim Garst

Connor pockets his cell. "Lily," he says. "If I wanted to date for a last name, I'd have a girl on my arm every single day. I would never be single." He leans forward. "I promise you, that my intentions are pure. And I think it's sweet you're looking out for Rose, but she's more than capable of taking care of herself, which is one of the many reasons why I want to pursue her." "What's another reason?" I test him. He smiles. "I won't have to taxingly explain to her menu items in a real French restaurant." He knows she's fluent? "I won't have to explain financial statements or dividends. I'll be able to discuss anything and everything in the world, and she'll have an answer. ~ Krista Ritchie

Honor is like the eye, which cannot suffer the least impurity without damage. It is a precious stone, the price of which is lessened by a single flaw. ~ Jacques-Benigne Bossuet

if we can't worship the same God together inside the same church buildings, then we will still knock on your door and so irritate you thatyou cannot worship your white God in peace, that you cannot escape thinking about the problems of segregation even on Sunday morning, that we are just letting you know that every single aspect of your Southern Way of Life is under attack. ~ Stephen R. Haynes

The single biggest reason I got my stories taken in various literary magazines - and I want to stress this - is because I refused to give up. Period. ~ Steve Almond

The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest. ~ Chinua Achebe

Freedom isn't worth a single solitary shit if it isn't shared. ~ Alix E. Harrow

The chief characteristics of the tall building is that it is lofty. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation so that from bottom to top it should be a unit without a single dissenting line. ~ Louis Sullivan

What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement, what fields of disputation, what an ocean of false learning, may be avoided by that single notion of immaterialism! ~ George Berkeley

I want to give up every single day of my life, but I can't. I'm obsessed. ~ Ruba Nadda

Congratulations, Jethro. Happy for you."

"Thanks, Drew."

The two men stared at each other and something passed between them, an understanding of some sort.

"Oh great, now Drew and Jethro can mind-meld. I'm getting out of here." I turned from the group and their chuckles.

"Come on, Cletus. Stick around. I'll gaze longingly into your eyes. Us single guys need to stick together," Beau called after me. ~ Penny Reid

She knew the minute HE arrived. Felt the warm blanket of comfort reach out to her frozen soul ... He made his way down the isle and sat next to her ... he didn't reach out, didn't touch her ... a single tear slid out from her closed lids and she blindly reached for his hand. He took her hand in more, gathering her close, arms coming around her warm and strong as her head sank down unto his shoulder and the tears finally came soaking the lapel of his wool suit. He offered her a perfectly white handkerchief ... she stared at it and wondered who carries that type of thing anymore? He looked back at her and explained, I'm old fashioned. ~ D.B. Reynolds

God, there's nothing sexier than a nice strong jawline and a movie-star-quality chin dimple. It's my own personal kryptonite.
- SINGLE-MINDED ~ Lisa Daily

I am sure that there are some single payer advocates who think the only thing worth fighting for is single payer. ~ Bernie Sanders

The second redemption upstaged the first. God sent not Moses but Jesus. He smote not Pharaoh but Satan. Not with ten plagues but a single cross. The Red Sea didn't open, but the grave did, and Jesus led anyone who wanted to follow him to the Land of No More. No more law keeping. No more striving after God's approval. 'You can rest now,' he told them. ~ Max Lucado

I am reminded of the proverb about the man with a single teacup to fetch water for his plants. In order to keep some alive, he had to let others die or run himself ragged. I have chosen to water this particular plant despite all its thorns, and I must simply hope my relationship with Tom can survive my absence. ~ Stacey Lee

I never thought to ascribe my mother's emotional and physical exhaustion to the lack of a husband and father; rather, I ascribed it to my existence. In other words, I grew up learning the exact opposite of what Eisenhower was taught. I learned that if I didn't exist, the family would be better off. I grew up believing that if I had never been born, things would be easier for the people I loved. (page 35) ~ Donald Miller

There is no reason for a feeling of separation from anything or anyone, because we have been it all and done it all. How then can we feel self-righteous or removed from anyone or any action? Ther is no spot on this earth where we have not laughed, cried, been born and died. So in some sense, every single place we go is home. Everyone we meet we know. Everything that is done we are capable of. ~ Sharon Salzberg

He would rather die with her than live a single day more without her. ~ Jackie Williams

Recent events have shown us that we are a single, interdependent world. But the burden of any world crisis falls most heavily on the developing countries and on their peoples. And everything that we have learnt tells us that it is the children who will be feeling the harshest and the most permanent effects. Can we therefore claim in all earnestness to love our children--the children of the North and the South--if we do not give the most serious attention to preventing a world that has more than enough resources from dividing ever more deeply between rich and poor? ~ Graca Machel

When you explain to people how this country [US] works, because we have a presidential single member district system there is no way to start a third party without injuring your friends that is if you start a liberal party you are going to elect conservatives and vice versa. ~ William Domhoff

The whole purpose of maintaining your power in government is to make sure that you stay in government. You stay in government by finding out who is liable to be against you. To do that, you try and put your finger into every single pie that is available to you. ~ David Lloyd

Shay Given almost single-handedly won the match for Newcastle against Everton, although obviously he didn't score the goals ~ George Hamilton

Screw up my life?" He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, "I'm a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single, Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the dry cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow." He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms, and said, "Do your worst. ~ Jim Butcher

I even thought of adopting a child as a single mother. ~ Diana Ross

You said you wanted to forget everything. But ... I don't want you to ever forget a thing that happened between us. Ever."
The most gentle of smiles passes over Ashton's face. "Irish, if there's one thing I've never been able to forget, it's single second with you. ~ K.A. Tucker

I believe every single one of us has a choice in life and that we can all choose to live out whatever our exceptional minds dream up. ~ Karni Liddell

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. - Sun Tzu ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

In English-speaking countries, the connection between heresy and homosexuality is expressed through the use of a single word to denote both concepts: buggery ... Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Third Edition) defines "buggery" as "heresy, sodomy. ~ Thomas Szasz

India Conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border. ~ Hu Shih

I am an unmarried man, as opposed to a single man. A bachelor, according to the dictionary, is a man who has never been married. An unmarried man is not married at the moment. Many of these terms have fallen into disuse. ~ Raymond Burr

Maybe our single-minded focus on the light makes us unable to see the dark that's all around, always. ~ Alicia Elliott

It is said that there exist parallel worlds in which all other possible realities occur. Every decision we could ever make exists as a unique reality in which that decision is made. Of course you can imagine that the possibilities existing for any single person are immense. But what about the facts? What really happens. Since this really depends on others, what you get is ... it.
Limited.
It.
This is it. ~ Stephen Demone

Of course the Catholic ethic was an ethic of intentions. But the concrete intentio of the single act determined its value. And the single good or bad action was credited to the doer determining his temporal and eternal fate. Quite realistically the Church recognized that man was not an absolutely clearly defined unity to be judged one way or the other, but that his moral life was normally subject to conflicting motives and his action contradictory. ~ Max Weber

I think it's very difficult to make any single, generalized statements about the press, of course the press is such varied character and quality and to the different media and so on, so a generalization is very difficult. ~ Walter Millis

A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time. ~ Carl Sagan

Remind me to show you the latest e-mail from Courtney," he said now, kicking at a rock on the sidewalk. "You won't believe how many different incorrect ways she spelled hors d'oeuvres within the span of a single paragraph. ~ Aimee Agresti

Advertising has done more to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single factor. ~ Clare Boothe Luce

Tintinnabulation is like this. Here I am alone with silence. I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence comfort me. ~ Arvo Part

Month by month, year by year, there took shape in Paul's mind a new and lucid image of his world, an image at once terrible and exquisite, tragic and farcical. It is difficult to give an idea of this new vision of Paul's, for its power depended largely on the immense intricacy and diversity of his recent experience; on his sense of the hosts of individuals swarming upon the planet, here sparsely scattered, there congested into great clusters and lumps of humanity. Speaking in ten thousand mutually incomprehensible dialects, living in manners reprehensible or ludicrous to one another, thinking by concepts unintelligible to one another, they worshipped in modes repugnant to one another. This new sense of the mere bulk and variety of men was deepened in Paul's mind by his enhanced apprehension of individuality in himself and others, his awed realization that each single unit in all these earth-devastating locust armies carried about with it a whole cognized universe. On the other hand, since he was never wholly forgetful of the stars, the shock between his sense of human littleness in the cosmos and his new sense of man's physical bulk and spiritual intensity increased his wonder. Thus in spite of his perception of the indefeasible reality of everyday things, he had also an overwhelming conviction that the whole fabric of common experience, nay the whole agreed universe of human and biological and astronomical fact, though real, concealed some vaster reality. ~ Olaf Stapledon

She had felt this intense disembodiment for the last four days, really from the moment the Snake Man had told them to turn around. And then the police, the undertaker, asking if she wanted to see the body one last time and Claire blanching at the word body and sobbing like a child because she had spent every single second since they had taken Paul from her arms trying to remove the image of her lifeless, murdered husband from her mind. ~ Karin Slaughter

I'm not sure what they mean by "revenge is a dish best served cold." But I do know this - nobody's ever satisfied with a single helping.

- Heman Lindon, McPherson, Kansas ( a character in Heels Over Head ) ~ Clay G. Small

Activities such as chanting, bowing, and sitting in zazen are not at all wasted, even when done merely formally, for even this superficial encounter with the Dharma will have some wholesome outcome at a later time. However, it must be said in the most unambiguous terms that this is not real Zen. To follow the Dharma involves a complete reorientation of one's life in such a way that one's activities are manifestations of, and are filled with, a deeper meaning. If it were not otherwise, and merely sitting in zazen were enough, every frog in the pond would be enlightened, as one Zen master said. Dōgen Zenji himself said that one must practice Zen with the attitude of a person trying to extinguish a fire in his hair. That is, Zen must be practiced with an attitude of single-minded urgency. ~ Francis Harold Cook

Every single person. Regardless of their sin struggle. ~ Karen Kingsbury

And right there on the soft grass, in the warm sunlight, our three hearts beat as one once again and we share every breath, every kiss, every single drop of our love.
Equal and alive.
Three. ~ Sierra Simone

Every few days the sea delivers us gifts, and I am convinced that there is something of the divine nature in this process. Often I have prayed for a jacket, a bucket, or a handsaw, but instead I find one single flip-flop. Many times it has left my heart bitter, but then I find some useful purpose for my found treasure. Maybe the sea doesn't give me what I want, but what I need. ~ Jennifer Arnett

Call me crazy, but I kind of like actually
you know
being attracted to the girl I'm making scream my name out loud." "Do you, Reeve? Do you make them scream your name out loud?" Reeve raised an eyebrow playfully. "Every. Single. Time. ~ Lauren Blakely

Movements in literature were not caricatures - in the sense that they actually functioned as an ideology in politics does. As now a monopolistic ideology in politics prevails in the literature as well a single movement prevails: that of networking as a literary quality. Quality = networking is the magic formula: take a Krijn Peter Hesselink, never managed to score a positive review but reviews are old news: it is only referential authority trickling down from that network pyramid that counts. Thus, nowadays its perfectly possible to be on top of the Pyramid without ever getting a positive review, or - even worse - I even see people rising in literary ranks that have never written any books at all. Ergo, your point that another ideology would make a 'caricature' of literary history is exactly the same reasoning used by neoliberals to deconstruct any political change: another ideology? Impossible, because they no longer exist, only we still exist.

In this way you get a pyramid shape you also see in popular music. It's still the bands from the 70's and 80's who earn the big money. New talent can't really play ball anymore. This of course embedded in a sauce of eternal talent shows, because the incumbent males have to just keep pretending they are everyone's benefactors. In the literature its the same: it is still Pfeijffer that gets the large sums of money from the Foundation of Literature, and it's still Samuel Vriezen pretending that that doesn't matter.

Martijn Benders