Sipping Quotes

Well, I guess that answers my question." The deep velvet voice startles me.
I jump, grab my pillow like I'm going to use it as a weapon.
Will stands in the doorway, sipping from a metallic travel mug. His gray T-shirt stretches across his shoulders and chest in a way that makes my throat close up.
"What question?" I ask, breathless.
"Whether you're as beautiful in the morning as you are during the rest of the day."
"Oh," I say dumbly, pushing the tangle of hair back off my shoulders, certain I don't look good right now, just rolling out of bed. Not that I take pains with my appearance on the average day, but still...who looks their best fresh out of bed? "You're here again," I murmur.
"Apparently."
"Can't stay away?"
"Apparently not."
I'm okay with that. Great, in fact.
"I made you breakfast," he adds.
"You can cook?" I'm impressed.
He grins. "I live in a bachelor household, remember? My mom died when I was a kid. I hardly remember her. I kind of had to learn to cook."
"Oh," I murmur, then sit up straighter. "Wait a minute. How'd you get in here?"
"Opened the front door." He takes another sip from his mug and looks at me like I'm in trouble. "Your mom really should lock the door when she leaves."
I arch a brow. "Would that have kept you out?"
He smiles a little. "You know me well. ~ Sophie Jordan

Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth.

Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie.

Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. ~ Ian McDonald

Imagine all the time we had was bottled up, like wine. and handed over to us. How would we make that bottle last? By sipping slowly, appreciating the taste, or by gulping? ~ Matt Haig

I want to build you a house with my bare hands and carry you over the threshold. I want too cook for you every evening and bring you tea in bed in the mornings. I want to read with you in front of an open fire, sipping a glass of wine. I want to drive you to the beach and lie next to you in the sun. I may not be a man of means, bit I want to take care of you as best I can. ~ Catherine Sanderson

At the far end of the bakery, our canvas curtain heralded April's lime and coconut theme. Little bags of coconut meringue polka dots with lime buttercream filling were there for the taking. I was proud of our little cakes shaped like a cracked-open coconut- white coconut cake interior with a dark chocolate "shell," complete with a lime cookie straw inserted in the center for imaginary sipping. Lime bars with a coconut crust and lime curd filling sat on a snowy white cake stand. ~ Judith Fertig

My fingers tightened on my waxed paper cup, sure now I knew why Minias was sitting at a table sipping coffee with me. I had a password. I had a reason to trade. I had a major problem. ~ Kim Harrison

Sitting on a bar stool and sipping a shot of Jack Daniel's washed down by a cold bottle of beer is an impeccable routine. I cannot think of a better ritual. ~ John E. Quinlan

Reading Mission to Paris is like sipping a fine Chateau Margaux: Sublime! ~ Erik Larson

That's alright," said Hugo. "I've got some wine"
Which was about all he seemed to have. He poured out two mugfuls.
"Very nice," said Adrian, sipping appreciatively. "I wonder how they got the cat to sit on the bottle."
"It's cheap, that's the main thing. ~ Stephen Fry

That is the way with us when we have any uneasy jealousy in our disposition: if our talents are chiefly of the burrowing kind, our honey-sipping cousin (whom we have grave reasons for objecting to) is likely to have a secret contempt for us, and any one who admires him passes an oblique criticism on ourselves. Having the scruples of rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of injuring him - rather we meet all his claims on us by active benefits; and the drawing of cheques for him, being a superiority which he must recognize, gives our bitterness a milder infusion. ~ George Eliot

The next dish given him was spinach with hard-boiled eggs, while Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, as an invalid, had jelly and milk. When with a preoccupied face she touched the jelly with a spoon and then began languidly eating it, sipping milk, and he heard her swallowing, he was possessed by such an overwhelming aversion that it made his head tingle. He recognised that such a feeling would be an insult even to a dog, but he was angry, not with himself but with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, for arousing such a feeling, and he understood why lovers sometimes murder their mistresses. He would not murder her, of course, but if he had been on a jury now, he would have acquitted the murderer. ~ Anton Chekhov

Wayne: You wanna know why I really came to find you?
Waxilliam: Why?
Wayne: I thought of you happy in a comfy bed, resting and relaxing, spending the rest of your life sipping tea and reading papers while people bring you food and maids rub your toes and stuff.
Waxilliam: And?
Wayne: And I just couldn't leave you to a fate like that ... I'm too good a friend to let a mate of mine die in such a terrible situation.
Waxilliam: Comfortable?
Wayne: No. Boring. ~ Brandon Sanderson

I stayed there sipping in that wrong air, until it filled my lungs with knowing that something bad was about to happen. ~ Jennifer Gooch Hummer

I sat in at every club in New York City, jamming with musicians, because it felt right - and because it felt right and we were having fun - the people dancing and sipping their drinks in the clubs felt it too and it made them smile. ~ Ray Conniff

Je ne regrette rien," I say, lifting my glass of water and sipping it. "That's the spirit," Evelyn says. "Although that song is more about not regretting because you don't live in the past. What I mean is that I'd still make a lot of the same decisions today. To be clear, there are things I regret. It's just . . . it's not really the sordid things. I don't regret many of the lies I told or the people I hurt. I'm OK with the fact that sometimes doing the right thing gets ugly. And also, I have compassion for myself. I trust myself. Take, for instance, when I snapped at you earlier, back at the apartment, when you said what you did about my confessing sins. It wasn't a nice thing to do, and I'm not sure you deserved it. But I don't regret it. Because I know I had my reasons, and I did the best I could with every thought and feeling that led up to it. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

America is subsidizing what is left of the prestige and strength of the once mighty Britain. The sun has set forever on that monocled, pith-helmeted resident colonialist, sipping tea with his delicate lady in the non-white colonies being systematically robbed of every valuable resource. Britain's superfluous royalty and nobility now exist by charging tourists to inspect the once baronial castles, and by selling memoirs, perfumes, autographs, titles, and even themselves. ~ Malcolm X

I want to be with my wife. Sitting on a deckchair, sipping some tea, and reading books in a retirement home, in a beautiful and warm place. I'm a romantic guy. ~ Robert Pattinson

Perfect, that's our plan then. But you'll have to give up being a priest first. I wouldn't want to just sit around whispering and sipping hot chocolate. ~ Ted Dekker

I hate people who sneak into first class to use the bathroom. I'm sitting there, in 4F, sipping Cristal and admiring my new line of jewelry for QVC, and suddenly, busting through the curtain and rushing toward the bathroom is some doughy soccer mom holding her crotch and yelling, "Emergency, emergency!" No, it's not!!! Opening the main hatch and pushing you out at thirty thousand feet for disturbing me is an emergency. ~ Joan Rivers

And what do you have planned for your soiree?" Ethan asked. "I'm guessing it won't involve tea sipping and heavy reading."

I pretended to adjust invisible glasses. "Well, we will be reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica aloud and watching Neil deGrasse Tyson videos on the YouTubes. We might also make time for macramé. ~ Chloe Neill

Sunny, happy with the music, no money. I'm thinking you're on holiday. Sipping yellow lemonade. ~ Alexandra Stan

Francesca actually felt her chin drop. "Mother," she said, shaking her head, "you really should have stopped at seven."
"Children, you mean?" Violet asked, sipping at her tea. "Sometimes I do wonder."
"Mother!" Hyacinth exclaimed.
Violet just smiled at her. "Salt?"
"It took her eight tries to get it right," Hyacinth announced, thrusting the salt cellar at her mother with a decided lack of grace.
"And does that mean that you, too, hope to have eight children?" Violet inquired sweetly.
"God no," Hyacinth said. With great feeling. And neither she nor Francesca could quite resist a chuckle after that. ~ Julia Quinn

Oh, life, life!" Bastidas complained, sipping his drink. "What is life? A little flame at the tip of a candle, exposed to a strong wind. ~ Julio Ramon Ribeyro

Bland writing - timid, antiseptic, vanilla writing - is nearly as unhealthy as the brutal and dark. Instead of sipping, say, elixir, nectar, tequila, or champagne, the reader is invited to slurp lumpy milk or choke on the author's dust bunnies. ~ Tom Robbins

Working Nine to Five Wet, cold, miserable, Monday morning. I had toast for breakfast, no bananas. I think my mum is taking out her revenge on Steve's behalf by withholding the purchase of bananas. I stood by the sink sipping my morning tea watching the rain wash down the kitchen window. Damn, I noticed that an eye had fallen off one of my bunny slippers. I decided to wear the blue pencil skirt with a white blouse to work and to tie my hair up as best I could. The journey was short and uneventful, no desperate people throwing themselves in ~ Betty Byers

I am a completely horizontal author. I can't think unless I'm lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I've got to be puffing and sipping. ~ Dan Brown

Even if I had convict ancestry, I wouldn't be ashamed of it. As far as I'm concerned, the real criminals back in those days weren't twelve-year-old boys nicking a loaf of bread or a pair of socks to ward off hunger and blisters. No, it was those who exploited them; keeping the battler in the gutter while they sat around in their manors, sipping tea and admiring portraits of their toffee-nosed great grandfathers. ~ Cameron Trost

I surveyed my surroundings. The hill was covered with sweet-smelling wildflowers and dancing butterflies awash in warm, glowing light - the power of Freya, goddess and ruler of Vanaheim, washing over the realm. On the hilltop, Freya's handpicked warriors lounged on blankets, laughing and sipping chai.
I scowled. Peace, butterflies, chai: this world was awful. ~ Rick Riordan

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?"
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest though bold Robin Hood
Would, wit his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can
"I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. ~ John Keats

I would like to forget the image of the ship's crane at Southampton docks when it lifted into the sky the three wooden trunks which held all that my family owned. There is only one memory I want to preserve. It is Maria, who is also Zama, sipping condensed milk on the steps of the doep at night. The African nights were warm. The stars were bright. I loved Maria but I'm not sure she loved me back. Politics and poverty had separated her from her own children and she was exhausted by the white children in her care, by everyone and everything in her care. At the end of the day, away from the people who stole her life's energy and made her tired, she had found a place to rest, momentarily, from myths about her character and her purpose in life." (from "Things I Don't Want to Know" by Deborah Levy) ~ Deborah Levy

I had never thought of Marley as any kind of model, but sitting there sipping my beer, I was aware that maybe he held the secret for a good life. Never slow down, never look back, live each day w/ adolescent verve and spunk and curiosity and playfulness. ~ John Grogan

I think certain people resonate in our lives, and no matter how much time or how many worlds stand between us, we often gravitate back to those same people. Call it a weak sort of fate, magnets at the right polarity, but years, distance - even death - were no match to whatever near-inconceivable force I felt at that moment, sitting with Tia at her bar and sipping rocket fuel. ~ Joe Ducie

Pastor Daniel, meanwhile, is sipping water on the balcony of a former sailing clubhouse, I ask if he can show me which parts of the Qur'an cause him concern. He tells me he's not the best person to ask.

'I can introduce you to a guy – I wouldn't call myself a scholarly person on Islam.'

Strange response, considering his travelling roadshow routine. ~ John Safran

Oh, those warm days of stumbling words; blinded eyes, embracing in sweet slow dances and sipping courage from a bottle for sneaking kisses. ~ Kellie Elmore

I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever. ~ Lord Chesterfield

shy but handsome fellow is sitting at a club, sipping a cocktail, and sees a beautiful woman seated alone at the bar. After an hour of screwing up his courage he finally heads over to her and asks tentatively, "Um, hi. Would you mind if I chatted with you for a while?" She responds by yelling, at the top of her lungs, "No, I won't sleep with you tonight!" Everyone in the bar turns in unison and stares at them. Naturally, the poor guy is hopelessly ~ Various

Sam was about to travel to Asia with her boyfriend and she was fretting about what her backers would think if she released some of her new songs while she was 'on vacation'. She was worried that posting pictures of herself sipping a Mai Tai was going to make her look like an asshole.

What does it matter? I asked her, where you are whether you're drinking a coffee, a Mai Tai or a bottle of water? I mean, aren't they paying for your songs so that you can... live? Doesn't living include wandering and collecting emotions and drinking a Mai Tai, not just sitting in a room writing songs without ever leaving the house?

I told Sam about another songwriter friend of mine, Kim Boekbinder, who runs her own direct support website through which her fans pay her monthly at levels from $5 to $1,000. She also has a running online wishlist of musical gear and costumes kindof like a wedding registry, to which her fans can contribute money anytime they want.

Kim had told me a few days before that she doesn't mind charging her backers during what she calls her 'staring at the wall time'. She thinks this is essential before she can write a new batch of songs. And her fans don't complain, they trust her process.

These are new forms of patronage, there are no rules and it's messy, the artists and the patrons they are making the rules as they go along, but whether these artists are using crowdfunding (which is basically, front me some money so I can ma ~ Amanda Palmer

To be seduced? Why, that was a matter of leaning back in one's chair, sipping one's wine, and responding to a query with the very first thought that has popped into one's head. And ~ Amor Towles

A philosopher and a social revolutionist, a painter, a singer, a poet, a writer, and a country gentleman, all engaged in sipping honey from life. ~ Elizabeth Breuer

Go ahead. Ask me who the father is."
He only smiled. "Do I look that stupid to you?"
She pushed back her short hair with a sigh. "He doesn't know, and you're not to tell him. In English, Apache or Lakota," she emphasized, covering all her bases.
He nodded. "What are you going to do?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," she confessed. "I only used the home-pregnancy test this morning, but I was pretty sure before then. I've got to find a place to live where Leta won't see me for a while. I can't risk having her tell Tate." She glanced at him. "Where were you all this time?" she wanted to know.
"Sitting calmly in a wing chair sipping coffee and trying to look invisible." He lifted his eyebrows at her disbelieving expression. "Somebody had to keep his head."
"There's an old saying that, if you can keep your head when everyone around you is losing theirs, you don't have a clue what's going on," she misquoted.
"Could be. But I'm not sporting a bruised face, like some I could name." He leaned forward. "Want to marry me?"
"Thanks, Colby," she said softly. "I really mean it. But it wouldn't be fair to any of us. Especially you."
He folded his arms and leaned back. "The offer doesn't have a time limit. I really do love children. ~ Diana Palmer

What the hell was your pal Bertin demanding?" he asked. "Sipping syrup?"

"It's a cocktail he prefers when he gets, ah, overly excited."

"A cocktail?"

"Of sorts. Lemon–lime soda, vodka, codeine in solution, and a Jolly Rancher candy."

"A what?"

"Bertin prefers the watermelon–flavored variety."

D'Agosta shook his head. "Christ. Only in Louisiana."

"Actually, I understand the concoction originated in Houston. ~ Douglas Preston

I think people think we're all sipping martinis by the pool. ~ Maria Menounos

Sipping Bailey's Cream by the stereo, trying to find relief on the radio. I'm suppressing the tears. ~ Mariah Carey

Come on. Let's go up to the kitchen, make some tea. We can try another one of Zia's cupcakes. She made some with chocolate frosting."
Lily froze in her tracks. "I hate it," she burst out. "I'm here, sipping tea and nibbling cupcakes while Bruno's out there? What, should I maybe crochet a white lace doily while I'm at it?"
Tam and Edie exchanged glances.
Tam, spoke, her voice dry. "Shot of bourbon, then? ~ Shannon McKenna

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else's snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It's world-creating.

It's raw, exposed dreaming. It's humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next.

It's what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience. ~ Laurie Perez

Much of the time he lay part-dressed on his bed, sipping gin, and thinking, and thinking, - though what it was, of which he thought, he seemed not to know. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I mean, have you ever imagined
the ocean is alive, and needs to tell us something important, and the only way it can talk
is by making waves crash, and we just lounge there, drenched in cocoa butter, on towels
with crappy novels and volleyballs, sipping spritzers, as the ocean uses all its strength to repeat
the same warning over and over? ~ Jeffrey McDaniel

I came home to find him propped up on a stack of pillows, sipping blood through a crazy straw (because it amused Zeb) and wearing Star Wars pajamas (because it amused Dick). ~ Molly Harper

But behind every misguided treatment - from Ottomans eating clay to keep the plague away to Victorian gents sitting in a mercury steam room for their syphilis to epilepsy sufferers sipping gladiator blood in ancient Rome - is the incredible power of the human desire to live. ~ Lydia Kang

This Land Is Protected By Million's Blood Bath, If Needed, We'll Fight Again By Sipping The Death Bowl ... ~ Muhammad Imran Hasan

Sipping once, sipping twice, sipping chicken soup with rice. ~ Maurice Sendak

I came back from vacation and I ate everything. I mean I'm sipping cocktails by the pool, thinking I'm a size 2. And now, you know, my dress is tight. So, I need it, too. I always need to remind myself: It's okay. ~ Viola Davis

Extraordinary - that Willowdale Academy and Calvin Coolidge High School should both be institutions of learning! The contrast is stunning. I had a leisurely tea with the Chairman of the English Department. I saw several faculty members sitting around in offices and lounges, sipping tea, reading, smoking. Through the large casement windows bare trees rubbed cozy branches. (One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have "windows with trees in them"!) Old leather chairs, book-lined walls, air of cultivated casualness, sound of well-bred laughter. ~ Bel Kaufman

We had a second date that night, then a third, and then a fourth. And after each date, my new romance novel protagonist called me, just to seal the date with a sweet word.
For date five, he invited me to his house on the ranch. We were clearly on some kind of a roll, and now he wanted me to see where he lived. I was in no position to say no.
Since I knew his ranch was somewhat remote and likely didn't have many restaurants nearby, I offered to bring groceries and cook him dinner. I agonized for hours over what I could possibly cook for this strapping new man in my life; clearly, no mediocre cuisine would do. I reviewed all the dishes in my sophisticated, city-girl arsenal, many of which I'd picked up during my years in Los Angeles. I finally settled on a non-vegetarian winner: Linguine with Clam Sauce--a favorite from our family vacations in Hilton Head.
I made the delicious, aromatic masterpiece of butter, garlic, clams, lemon, wine, and cream in Marlboro Man's kitchen in the country, which was lined with old pine cabinetry. And as I stood there, sipping some of the leftover white wine and admiring the fruits of my culinary labor, I was utterly confident it would be a hit.
I had no idea who I was dealing with. I had no idea that this fourth-generation cattle rancher doesn't eat minced-up little clams, let alone minced-up little clams bathed in wine and cream and tossed with long, unwieldy noodles that are difficult to negotiate.
Still, he ate it. And ~ Ree Drummond

We need a test!" I jump up out of the chair and pat my body down. "Where's my wallet?"

"In your pocket," she replies dryly.

"I'll be back!" I race out of the house and drive the short distance between Dom's estate and the nearest village. After I find a drug store and buy one of each kind of pregnancy test they have, I race back to my hopefully pregnant wife.

"That was fast," she murmurs with a grin. She was still sitting in the lounge chair, sipping her coffee.

"Should you be drinking coffee?" I ask.

"Let's not get crazy," she responds. I need coffee.

"I got one of each kind," I announce and opened the bag, sending small white and blue boxes scattering.

"Uh, Caleb, we only need one."

"What if we can't figure them out?" I ask and pick one up to examine it. "All of the instructions are in Italian."

She laughs hysterically and then stands, wiping her eyes.

"It's not funny."

"Yes, it is. Pregnancy tests are pretty universal, Caleb. You pee on it and a line either appears or it doesn't." She rubs my arm sweetly and kisses my shoulder before plucking the box out of my fingers. "I'll be back."

"I'm coming with you." I begin to follow her but she turns quickly with her hands out to stop me.

"Oh no, you aren't. You are not going to watch me pee on this stick."

I scowled down at her and cross my arms over my chest. "I've helped you b ~ Kristen Proby

I also began to have a pretty disturbing attitude toward eating. I developed a real superiority complex to people who ate actual food. I realized that this is how fashion editors at women's magazines must feel all the time. Oh God, look at those sad piggos, munching away on their sandwiches. I'd just sit there, sipping my kale juice, quietly judging everyone as they happily ate their lunches. And ~ Mindy Kaling

The old man had been stoking and sipping at his pipe for the last fifteen minutes as they awaited the prisoner. The smoke of his tobacco was the foulest that she, a girl raised in a house with seven brothers and a widowed father, had every been obliged to inhale. It hung in the room as thick as sheepshearing and made arabesques in the harsh slanting light from the window. ~ Michael Chabon

Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special, it's not. If you feel special in any way, then enlightenment has not occurred. I meet a lot of people who think they are enlightened and awake simply because they have had a very moving spiritual experience. They wear their enlightenment on their sleeve like a badge of honor. They sit among friends and talk about how awake they are while sipping coffee at a cafe. The funny thing about enlightenment is that when it is authentic, there is no one to claim it. Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence. Everyone else may or may not call you enlightened, but when you are enlightened the whole notion of enlightenment and someone who is enlightened is a big joke. I use the word enlightenment all the time; not to point you toward it but to point you beyond it. Do not get stuck in enlightenment. ~ Adyashanti

The medicine-man, having given him the once-over, had ordered him to abstain from all alcoholic liquids, and in addition to tool down the hill to the Royal Pump-Room each morning at eight-thirty and imbibe twelve ounces of warm crescent saline and magnesia. It doesn't sound much, put that way, but I gather from contemporary accounts that it's practically equivalent to getting outside a couple of little old last year's eggs beaten up in sea-water. And the thought of Uncle George, who had oppressed me sorely in my childhood, sucking down that stuff and having to hop out of bed at eight-fifteen to do so was extremely grateful and comforting of a morning.
At four in the afternoon he would toddle down the hill again and repeat the process, and at night we would dine together and I would loll back in my chair, sipping my wine, and listen to him telling me what the stuff had tasted like. In many ways the ideal existence. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

My wife has made up Ty's old bedroom for you," he told him in a low voice as Ty and Mara argued over the merits of the couch cushions versus the rocks out back.
"Oh Christ." Zane laughed, falling back in his chair. "He won't let me forget this. Losing his bed to me."
"Well," Earl said with a sigh, "it's either that or fight his mama over it." He sat and watched Ty and Mara for a moment, sipping at his coffee contentedly. "Ain't none of us ever won that fight," he told Zane flatly.
"Me and Zane'll just bunk together," Ty was arguing.
Mara laughed at him. "You two boys won't fit in a double bed any more than I'll still fit in my wedding dress," she scoffed.

[...]

"Good morning, Zane dear, how did you sleep?" Mara asked as she came up to him and pressed a glass of orange juice into his hands.
"Ah, okay," Zane hedged, taking the glass out of self-defense. "I don't do too well sleeping in strange places lately, but…."
"Well, Ty's bed is about as strange a place as you can get," Deuce offered under his breath. He followed it with a muffled grunt as Ty kicked him under the table. ~ Abigail Roux

The time I spend in the morning - praying, sipping coffee, and coming up with my list - is a ritual I relish. I have done it for so long now that I subconsciously measure whether or not the things I'm doing match with what I should be doing, what I want to be doing, and the life I want to live. ~ Kristin Armstrong

And time cast forth my mortal creature To drift or drown upon the seas Acquainted with the salt adventure Of tides that never touch the shores. I who was rich was made the richer By sipping at the vine of days. ~ Dylan Thomas

Here with my beer I sit, while golden moments flit: alas! They pass unheeded by: and as they fly, I, being dry, sit idly sipping here, my beer. ~ George Arnold

Lost in Venice
I found you the same way I found Venice,
Lost in the skein of her back alleys,
Secret gardens, shadowy passageways,
A pleasant discovery at every turn.
You too were a city of bridges,
Oflimitless connection to my heart,
Which floated like a palazzo on the Adriatic,
Kept afloat by the spells you cast in your sleep.
Yes, you were this mystical city in microcosm,
A serene Vitruvian woman,
Truest measure of man,
Sipping your espresso in Piazza San Marco
And slowly vanishing under the flood waters
Like Atlantis. ~ Beryl Dov

No, of course she didn't say it. But there is no other reason she should have called, except to pave the way for her brother. she had nothing whatsoever to talk about. Just sat there like a stick, sipping tea."
"I didn't know sticks could sip tea. ~ Tessa Dare

Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he could not place her although he could almost recall her name, as he had read it in her own handwriting. No, this couldn't be; he would have remembered her. It was not, he affirmed, that she had an extraordinary beauty--no, though her face was attractive enough; it was that something about her moved him. Feature for feature, even some of the ladies of the photographs could do better; but she lapsed forth to this heart--had lived, or wanted to--more than just wanted, perhaps regretted how she had lived--had somehow deeply suffered: it could be seen in the depths of those reluctant eyes, and from the way the light enclosed and shone from her, and within her, opening realms of possibility: this was her own. Her he desired. His head ached and eyes narrowed with the intensity of his gazing, then as if an obscure fog had blown up in the mind, he experienced fear of her and was aware that he had received an impression, somehow, of evil. He shuddered, saying softly, it is thus with us all. Leo brewed some tea in a small pot and sat sipping it without sugar, to calm himself. But before he had finished drinking, again with excitement he examined the face and found ~ Bernard Malamud

CONFLICT is the unhealthy fruit from the tree of MISUNDERSTANDING
which was once a seed of INSECURITIES that
sprout from the isolation of MIND,
sipping slowly the liquid of PRIDE... ~ Robby Dumanon

A Song

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish you sat on the sofa
and I sat near.
The handkerchief could be yours,
the tear could be mine, chin-bound.
Though it could be, of course,
the other way around.

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish we were in my car
and you'd shift the gear.
We'd find ourselves elsewhere,
on an unknown shore.
Or else we'd repair
to where we've been before.

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish I knew no astronomy
when stars appear,
when the moon skims the water
that sighs and shifts in its slumber.
I wish it were still a quarter
to dial your number.

I wish you were here, dear,
in this hemisphere,
as I sit on the porch
sipping a beer.
It's evening, the sun is setting;
boys shout and gulls are crying.
What's the point of forgetting
if it's followed by dying? ~ Joseph Brodsky

It was after midnight by a mile when I slid off the bar stool at O'Malley's and began to walk home. O'Malley's is an old Irish pub and though I wasn't Irish, nor did I drink like a lot of other newspaper reporters I knew, I stopped by for a Coke nearly every evening. I liked listening to other reporters - and cops, who also frequented O'Malley's - shoot the breeze and relate old stories that hadn't been completely true the first time they'd been told.

O'Malley's was just somewhere to go which made every guy sipping a beer or doing shots feel a little less alone in a city like Los Angeles. Some of them still had wives, but you could tell they were lonely. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been hanging around a bar at that hour; they'd have been finding solace in soft flesh and perfume. Maybe their wives would have been finding some solace too, and more of them would have stayed married. Most of those guys, cops and reporters alike, were working on their second or third marriage. I didn't think they were working hard enough, but maybe that was because I didn't have anyone to go home to. ~ Bobby Underwood

Many individuals are so constituted that their only thought is to obtain pleasure and shun responsibility. They would like, butterfly-like, to wing forever in a summer garden, flitting from flower to flower, and sipping honey for their sole delight. They have no feeling that any result which might flow from their action should concern them. They have no conception of the necessity of a well-organized society wherein all shall accept a certain quota of responsibility and all realize a reasonable amount of happiness. They think only of themselves because they have not yet been taught to think of society. For them pain and necessity are the great taskmasters. Laws are but the fences which circumscribe the sphere of their operations. When, after error, pain falls as a lash, they do not comprehend that their suffering is due to misbehavior. Many such an individual is so lashed by necessity and law that he falls fainting to the ground, dies hungry in the gutter or rotting in the jail and it never once flashes across his mind that he has been lashed only in so far as he has persisted in attempting to trespass the boundaries which necessity sets. A prisoner of fate, held enchained for his own delight, he does not know that the walls are tall, that the sentinels of life are forever pacing, musket in hand. He cannot perceive that all joy is within and not without. He must be for scaling the bounds of society, for overpowering the sentinel. When we hear the cries of the individual strun ~ Theodore Dreiser

Ripened Fruit

Do you remember how you came into existence?
You may not remember
because you arrived a little drunk.
Let me give you a hint:
Let go off your mind and then be mindful.
Close your ears and listen!

It is difficult to speak to your unripeness.
You may still be in your springtime,
unaware that autumn exists.
This world is a tree to which we cling----
we, the half-ripe fruit upon it.

The immature fruit clings tightly to the branch
because, not yet ripe, it's unfit for the palace.
When fruits become ripe, sweet, and juicy,
then, biting their lips,
they loosen their hold.

When the mouth has been sweetened by felicity,
the kingdom of the world loses it's appeal.
To be tightly attached to the world is immaturity.
As long as you're an embryo,
all you think about is sipping blood.

There's more to be said,
but let the Holy Spirit tell it.
You may even tell it to your own ear.
Neither I, nor some other "I," needs to tell you,
you who are also I.

Just as when you fall asleep,
you leave the presence of yourself
to enter another presence of yourself.
You hear something from yourself
and imagine that someone else
has secretly spoken to you in a dream.
But you are not a single "you,"
my friend----you are the wide sky and the deep sea.
Your awesome "You," which is nine hund ~ Rumi

We've both moved through insurmountable odds, and yet here we are, improbably alive. Sipping cocoa. ~ Laurie Forest

Nobody went to bed at seven in Paris, even French children. Les enfants stayed up late at night, he had heard, eating with the adults, sipping red wine, and discussing the latest books and films. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Matthews quietly stood by the closed door, watching the patient. Her dramatic eyes darted back and forth as they stared through nothingness, lost in thought. His gaze shifted to her blazing locks, which elegantly fell upon her bare shoulders. Her skin was a pure porcelain that reminded him of his mother's doll collection. Bridget's petite frame and angelic complexion were stunning, and in another world, Matthews would have allowed himself to fall for her at first sight. He imagined seeing her in a bookstore with a specialty coffee in one hand and Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil in another. She would push her frames up her nose with her index finger before flipping the page and sipping her latte. Matthews, free of his work uniform, would sit in a chair across from her with his copy of The Metamorphosis. The young man would steal glances at her from behind his novel as he worked up the courage to speak to her. She would smile coyly when she caught him peeking, and when they finally made eye contact, he would strike up a conversation. Then he would take her to dinner, and everything else would fall into place. ~ Emmie White

In 1784, the new prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, reduced the tea tax from 119 percent to 12.5 percent. Cheap tea was then available to the masses, though elitists decried tea's ill effects on "persons of an inferior rank." Women neglected "the affairs of their families" for afternoon tea sipping. ~ Maureen Stanton

Penelope gulped down the tea she'd been in the process of sipping. Colin had a way of looking at a person, his green eyes so focused and intent that you felt as if you must be the only two people in the universe. Unfortunately for Penelope, it also seemed to have a way of reducing her to a stammering imbecile. If they were in the midst of a conversation, she could generally hold her own, but when he surprised her like that, turning his attention onto her just when she'd convinced herself she blended in perfectly with the wallpaper, she was completely and utterly lost. ~ Julia Quinn

She sat calmly sipping her tea. I wondered ~ Anchee Min

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space? ~ D.T. Suzuki

The Zipper is scarier than any ride at Six Flags because there is a real element of danger. It was put together that morning by a guy who was smoking and sipping off a flask while he was doing it. And the House of Mirrors is a disaster. It's a fun house where the fun is head trauma from running into a sheet of glass. ~ Adam Carolla

Goddamn women had no clue what it did to a man, the way they looked sipping liquor, or sucking a long pull off a bottle. Or maybe they did. Maybe this one could guess exactly how suffocating Vince's jeans were suddenly feeling. ~ Cara McKenna

I'm sipping cranberry-and-ginger-ale punch and talking to Aunt D. about her divorce when Peter Kavinsky walks in wearing a hunter-green sweater with a button-down shirt underneath, carrying a Christmas tin. I almost choke on my punch.
Kitty spots him when I do. "You came!" she cries. She runs right into his arms, and he puts down the cookie tin and picks her up and throws her around. When he sets her down, she takes him by the hand and over to the buffet table, where I'm busying myself rearranging the cookie plate.
"Look what Peter brought," she says, pushing him forward.
He hands me the cookie tin. "Here. Fruitcake cookies my mom made."
"What are you doing here?" I whisper accusingly.
"The kid invited me." He jerks his head toward Kitty, who has conveniently run back over to the puppy. Josh is standing up now, looking over at us with a frown on his face. "We need to talk."
So now he wants to talk. Well, too late. "We don't have anything to talk about."
Peter takes me by the elbow and I try to shake him off, but he won't let go. He steers me into the kitchen. "I want you to make up an excuse to Kitty and leave," I say. "And you can take your fruitcake cookies with you."
"First tell me why you're so pissed at me."
"Because!" I burst out. "Everyone is saying how we had sex in the hot tub and I'm a slut and you don't even care!"
"I told the guys we didn't!"
"Did you? Did you tell them that all we did was kiss and that's all ~ Jenny Han

Thank fuck the camera loved him more than he loved himself.
He could recline on silk sheets for cologne or seethe in a sportscar. His life became the silk sheet he had once reclined upon: smooth, compliant and without substance. In pursuit of that something, he enterprised. His upbringing on Lake Como receded as he found himself sipping sangria on a Monte Carlo balcony, basking on his cruiser in Cannes or cheering Chelsea within a glass suite above the stands. Whether he felt dead inside wasn't up for discussion. ~ Charles J. Harwood

Kirby didn't notice him immediately as she stood shyly beside Castle, looking out of place. Grip, and a few of the niggas were posted in VIP when the captain of their crew arrived fashionably late. Now that business was taken care of, they were blowing cash and sipping codeine like it was Kool-Aid. A colorful selection of women was sprinkled throughout their section, each one hoping to claim a made man. Same shit. Different state. ~ Pebbles Starr

Leonardo had felt so too. "I got her bloody smile right in the roughs," he told Crowley, sipping cold wine in the lunchtime sun, "but it went all over the place when I painted it. Her husband had a few things to say about it when I delivered it, but, like I tell him, Signor del Giocondo, apart from you, who's going to see it? ~ Terry Pratchett

Honey, making a guy jealous is like getting a fine ass. You have to work hard for it." She waved me off, twirling in place and sipping on her champagne. "Act like you don't care."

"I do care."

"Ugh, I know. Which is so awful, isn't it? Guys are trash. ~ L.J. Shen

He poured this to the brim with good bourbon (Miss Elling knew it was good bourbon because she had helped herself to a snifter from the flask during his luncheon absence on her third day in his employ) and spent ten minutes sipping the drink. ~ Matthew Blood

Thirty minutes later, Dan is sipping his double something or other frappe latte. His order nearly made me cross my eyes trying to keep up with all the extra stuff he added. I still don't get what everyone sees in all those overpriced flavored coffees. Don't get me wrong - I love my caramel macchiato from Starbucks, but even I can't see paying five dollars every couple of hours for coffee. You'd spend an entire paycheck in ~ Apryl Baker

Maybe love was a woman feeding him pancakes. Maybe it was someone sitting across from him sipping orange juice just to please him. ~ Christine Feehan

I feel it's time to start a movement for equal, non-discriminatory facilities at discos. I ask, why are there no wheel chairs at Titos?
Why can't they have 'Geriatric Nites' as well? We could all go there, take off our dentures and have wild time, while sipping our chicken soup.
Come think of it, they could also offer a free dialysis with every drink! ~ Rachna Singh

In November, people are good to each other. They carry pies to each other's homes and talk by crackling woodstoves, sipping mellow cider. They travel very far on a special November day just to share a meal with one another and to give thanks for their many blessings - for the food on their tables and the babies in their arms. ~ Cynthia Rylant

Johnny James was sitting on the front porch, sipping from a glass of gasoline in the December heat, when the doom-screamer came. ~ Robert McCammon

I don't think people are going to come down to Texas and see every person riding in a candy car or every person sipping syrup. But, for the most part, people got a lot of the stuff right, talking about the screwed music scene. ~ Chamillionaire

Allie." Dean leans forward and fixes me with an eerily somber stare. "This show is fucking stupid."

"I know," I say sheepishly. "But it's addictive. Trust me, one episode of this crap and you'll be hooked."

"Sorry, baby doll, but I can pretty much guarantee that's not gonna happen."

*

Dean

It happened.

God help me. I'm into this show.

I came over tonight with the single-minded purpose of working the charm and convincing Allie to get naked with me again. Instead, I'm sipping on a margarita, I've just watched two hours' worth of a French soap opera, and now I'm texting Logan to let him know I won't make it to Malone's. Because…God help me…I want to know what happens next. ~ Elle Kennedy

I'm quietly sipping my coffee,
sitting on the deck,
settled in to my little jungle of herbs and buzzing bees,
letting my thoughts wander, soaked in the warmth of the rising sun.
Breathing in and out the soft air
filling the moment with fluids of peace. ~ Anna Asche

Linda seemed to recognize loneliness. Possibly she could see it sitting opposite her, sipping lager and trying not to lose its temper. It was an illness, loneliness-it made you weak, gullible, feebleminded. ~ Nick Hornby

You're a heartbreaker, Katherine Devereaux."

"That has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them," I say, blowing on my coffee before sipping it. There's chicory in the brew and I drink it appreciatively while we walk. "I have already had to tell more than one of them that I am not interested in courtship, thinking about courtship, hearing about courtship, or talking about the possibility of courtship. What is it with men thinking every woman they meet must be half in love with them? ~ Justina Ireland

I wish I were a tree.
Tall. Strong. Abiding.
Rooted in the spot I stand, impervious to lures that drag the transient here and there. Possessing neither a negligent ear nor a traitorous tongue that would only soak in and breath out rabid gossip. Able to endure fickle shifts in the wind and not bend. Lazing under the fierce sun, weariless, suffering no sweat or burn.
Alive, sipping water, quietly providing.
How I wish I were a tree. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

God came up and kissed Day on his forehead. When Day looked over at Johnson, who was still slowly sipping his soda, the guy did look lonely as hell. Before Day could say something kind, his other headache strolled in.

"Oh hell. What the fuck is going on in here? This must be the officer's gay alliance club meeting."

Day blew an exasperated breath. "And now that you're here, Ronowski, all members are present and we can begin."

Day smiled as God and Johnson practically spit their drinks out laughing.

Ronowski fumed. "Day, you're going to stop calling me gay! I have never been gay! I will never be gay, and I don't like anyone that is gay! So stop saying that before people start believing your bullshit!"

Day clapped his hands together once. "Okay everyone those are the notes from last week's meeting, now on to new business." Day leveled Ronowski with a stern glare. "Ronowski, you are gay, man. You're tightly closeted. But you are indeed gay, ultra-gay. You're fuckin' Marvin Gay. You crash landed on Earth when your gay planet exploded." Day moved away from God and stood in front of an openmouthed Ronowski. "Come out of the closet already. It's so bright and wonderful out here. Dude, I've seen Brokeback Mountain too, don't believe that bullshit. No one cares who you fuck…ya know…like you tell me every. Single. Day. Of. My. Life," Day said exaggeratedly.

He stepped in so close to Ronowski that he could smell the body ~ A.E. Via

I was performing my ritual of sipping tea, shooting flirtatious glances and planning murder ~ Mingmei Yip

Strangman shrugged theatrically. "It might," he repeated with great emphasis. "Let's admit that. It makes it more interesting - particularly for Kerans. 'Did I or did I not try to kill myself?' One of the few existential absolutes, far more significant than 'To be or not to be?', which merely underlines the uncertainty of the suicide, rather than the eternal ambivalence of his victim." He smiled down patronisingly at Kerans as the latter sat quietly in his chair, sipping at the drink Beatrice had brought him. "Kerans, I envy you the task of finding out - if you can. ~ J.G. Ballard