Spot Quotes

Don't be afraid, Queen, the blood has long run down into the earth. And on the spot where it was spilled, grapevines are growing today. ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Outsong in the Jungle

[Baloo:] For the sake of him who showed
One wise Frog the Jungle-Road,
Keep the Law the Man-Pack make
For thy blind old Baloo's sake!
Clean or tainted, hot or stale,
Hold it as it were the Trail,
Through the day and through the night,
Questing neither left nor right.
For the sake of him who loves
Thee beyond all else that moves,
When thy Pack would make thee pain,
Say: "Tabaqui sings again."
When thy Pack would work thee ill,
Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill."
When the knife is drawn to slay,
Keep the Law and go thy way.
(Root and honey, palm and spathe,
Guard a cub from harm and scathe!)

Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,
Jungle-Favour go with thee!

[Kaa:] Anger is the egg of Fear--
Only lidless eyes see clear.
Cobra-poison none may leech--
Even so with Cobra-speech.
Open talk shall call to thee
Strength, whose mate is Courtesy.
Send no lunge beyond thy length.
Lend no rotten bough thy strength.
Gauge thy gape with buck or goat,
Lest thine eye should choke thy throat.
After gorging, wouldst thou sleep ?
Look thy den be hid and deep,
Lest a wrong, by thee forgot,
Draw thy killer to the spot.
East and West and North and South,
Wash thy hide and close thy mouth.
(Pit and rift and blue pool-brim,
Middle-Jungle follow him!)

Wood and Water, W ~ Rudyard Kipling

The best aphorisms are ... portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs. ~ William Rounseville Alger

I love you, Mary, he says, and that is when I let the tears come. The great heaving sobs of terror and pain that shake my body until I can do nothing but grab on to Travis to anchor me to this spot. He pulls me toward him and I curl around his body as I weep. I fall into darkness with his fingers trailing through my har, my cheeks still wet and my body heaving. ~ Carrie Ryan

The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alivewith chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

There were no trees, no bushes, nothing but a gray sea of moss scarcely diversified by gray rocks, gray lakelets, and gray streamlets. The sky was gray. There was no sun nor hint of sun. He had no idea of north, and he had forgotten the way he had come to this spot the night before. But he was not lost. He knew that. Soon he would come to the land of the little sticks. He felt that it lay off to the left somewhere, not far - possibly just over the next low hill. He ~ Jack London

All I can tell you is that we have to re-live the gospel every time we pray. We have to re-live it every time we go to church. We have to re-live the gospel on the spot and ask ourselves what we are doing in the courtroom. We should not be there. The court is adjourned. ~ Timothy Keller

O, let the place of secret prayer become to me the most beloved spot on earth. ~ Andy Murray

What the hell was that?" one of them asked.

"Jackal," Irene stated quietly while watching city streets turn to suburb.
They weren't taking her to a main airport but a small airstrip. One built
exclusively for private planes.

"Did she just call us jackals?" one of them joked.

Irene grinned which wiped the smile off the man's face. "No. I said the howl
you heard was jackal." She looked at Jenny. "They'll be coming for you."

Jenny glanced at the men and back at her. She looked terribly concerned she
had a lunatic in the car with her. "The jackals will be coming for me?"

"No. The wolves."

Jenny sighed. "Why oh why do I always get the nutcases?"

"Oh!" Irene pointed excitedly. "See that spot up there?"

"What about it?"

"That's where it all started. Where I crossed the Rubicon."

Exasperated, Jenny snarled, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"It's feeding time," Irene whispered.


"That's it." Jenny threw up her hands. "We're so medicating her. ~ Shelly Laurenston

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

I follow Grandma toward the front of the sanctuary. She and Granddaddy have a spot on the second row that's theirs. See, the first row is for folks who wanna show off. The second row is for folks who wanna show off but wanna act like they're subtler about it. ~ Angie Thomas

Their Invisibility Cloak didn't stop them making any noise, and there was a particularly tense moment when Ron stubbed his toe only yards from the spot where Snape stood standing guard. Thankfully, Snape sneezed at almost exactly the moment Ron swore. ~ J.K. Rowling

I would drive through the desert, and there's this one spot in the desert that, every time I drove through it, I would get crazy ideas. I would either sing into the cell phone recorder or I would sing into a DAT machine. ~ Tim Rutili

Everybody's a racist. It's the one human trait that makes us all exactly the same. Deep down, we only like people who are exactly like us. And it doesn't matter. White. Black. Red. Yellow. Purple, uh oh, the purple people, are the worst. Man. All prejudiced and birth marky. But, we've got to learn to get past our differences. I learned that at the museum of tolerance. After my dad beat the crap out of a guy over a parking spot. ~ Christopher Titus

The key to skeleton is to find the line, and I think I spend most of training figuring out where that sweet spot is ... ~ Katie Uhlaender

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

I firmly believe, from what I have seen, that this is the chosen spot of all this earth as far as nature is concerned. ~ Luther Burbank

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but
the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression.
Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa,
have long expelled her.?Europe regards her like a stranger, and England
hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in
time an asylum for mankind. ~ Thomas Paine

But here's the thing: I had this great job, and I would still feel terribly depressed. I would just be like, 'This isn't the sweet spot. I thought this would be it, and I don't feel happy.' ~ Anna Chlumsky

How do you know Spotted Neck has a big spot on his neck? ~ Mo Yan

- Did you really save the world ? ...
- Mostly I was saving my own ass. Just happend that the world was in the same spot. ~ Jim Butcher

The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known; for then the enemy will have to prepare against a possible attack at several different points; ~ Sun Tzu

We can no longer create the feeling of an era ... of time being particular to one spot in time. ~ Douglas Coupland

…The heavens could not bear my debt
And wrote me as a madman in my fate.
But lovers bled their hearts
And on the face of the Beloved
Did a beauty spot create.

The fire that burns
In the flame of the lamp
Is not the fire;
It burns in the essence of
The moth and consumes him entire… ~ Hafiz Shirazi

A Polish man bought a zebra for a pet. What does he call the zebra? Spot! ~ Henny Youngman

Finally, the functionalist organization, by privileging progress (i.e. time), causes the condition of its own possibility
space itself
to be forgotten: space thus becomes the blind spot in a scientific and political technology. This is the way in which the Concept-city functions: a place of transformations and appropriations, the object of various kinds of interference but also a subject that is constantly enriched by new attributes, it is simultaneously the machinery and the hero of modernity. ~ Michel De Certeau

Since I had a soft spot for zombies and my curiosity was killing me, I opted for plan Z. ~ Darynda Jones

One last mystery: on one of the little ponds, this morning, I saw wind riffling the first of the waterlily leaves. They haven't all emerged yet, but new circles tattoo the water, here and there, a coppery red. When the wind lifted their edges, each would reveal a little shadowy spot, a dot of black which seemed to flash on the water, and so across the whole surface of the pond there was what could only be described as the inverse of sparkling; a scintillant blackness. Shining blackly, black but rippling, lyrical: the sheen and radiance of death-in-life.
Is that my work, to point to the world and say, See how darkly it sparkles? ~ Mark Doty

We should forgive and forget the faults of others. Anger is the enemy of every spiritual aspirant. Anger causes loss of power through every pore of our body. In circumstances when the mind is tempted to get angry, we should control ourselves and resolve firmly, 'No.' We can go to a secluded spot and chant our mantra. The mind will become quiet by itself. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

Jane and Mr. Nobley entered the great hall, the ceiling dazzling with thousands of real candles that put fire into the white dresses and cravats. Five musicians were seated on a dais--a cello and two violins (or maybe a viola?), a harpsichord, and some kind of wind instrument. From keys and strings, they coaxed a grand prelude to the minuet. Jane looked at everything, smiling at the amusement park novelty of it all. She looked at Mr. Nobley. He was beaming at her. At last.
"You are stunning," he said, and every inch of him seemed to swear that it was true.
"Oh," she said.
He kissed her gloved fingers. He was still smiling. There was something different about him tonight, and she couldn't place what it was. Some new plot twist, she presumed. She was eager to roll around in all the plot she could on her last night, though once or twice her eyes strayed to spot Martin.
Mr. Nobley stood opposite her in a line of ten men. She watched Amelia and Captain East perform the figures. They held each other's gazes, they smiled with the elation of new love. All very convincing.
Poor Amelia, thought Jane.
It was a bit cruel, now that she thought about it, all these actors who made women fall in love with them. Amelia seemed so tenderhearted, and Miss Charming and her heaving breasts so delighted with this world. Jane caught sight of a very striking Colonel Andrews who, now that she watched him dance, might just be gay.
Jane felt a thrumming of foreboding. ~ Shannon Hale

Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separated from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a "scenic" area, he is bored stiff. If crops could be raised by hydroponics instead of farming, it would suit him very well. Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural land products suit him better than the originals. In short, land is something he has "outgrown ~ Aldo Leopold

He saw a tattoo on her throat and he read it with some amusement. Foxhole prayers in a stylized cursive. Strange girl. The 'X' crossed the artery pulsing under her velvet skin. Skin he knew would be warm butter beneath his fangs.

X marks the spot, my dear. ~ Vanessa Gravenstein

You journey to Olympia to see the work of Phidias; and each of you holds it a misfortune not to have beheld these things before you die. Whereas when there is no need even to take a journey, but you are on the spot, with the works before you, have you no care to contemplate and study these?

Will you not then perceive either who you are or unto what end you were born: or for what purpose the power of contemplation has been bestowed on you?

"Well, but in life there are some things disagreeable and hard to bear."

And are there none at Olympia? Are you not scorched by the heat? Are you not cramped for room? Have you not to bathe with discomfort? Are you not drenched when it rains? Have you not to endure the clamor and shouting and such annoyances as these? Well, I suppose you set all this over against the splendour of the spectacle and bear it patiently. What then? have you not received greatness of heart, received courage, received fortitude? What care I, if I am great of heart, for aught that can come to pass? What shall cast me down or disturb me? What shall seem painful? Shall I not use the power to the end for which I received it, instead of moaning and wailing over what comes to pass? ~ Epictetus

That's it. I had enough of your abuse," Tristan said, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me back down on the bed. I screamed as he tackled me. We wrestled back and forth, laughing. I found his tickle spot giving me the advantage, but he was fast and kept getting the upper hand. He had me pinned with my arms above my head and his body pressing down on mine. I stopped resisting, but he didn't let go. He was panting and smiling over his victory. He stared deep into my eyes making my heart race. ~ Jessica Miller

What does a clue look like?" Tanith whispered.
Stephanie fought the giggle down and whispered back. "I'm looking for a footprint or something."
"Have you found one yet?"
"No. But that's probably because I haven't moved from this spot."
"Maybe we should move, pretend we know what we're doing."
They started to walk, very slowly, still looking straight down. ~ Derek Landy

He beheld Lourdes, contaminated by Mammon, turned into a spot of abomination and perdition, transformed into a huge bazaar, where everything was sold, masses and souls alike! ~ Emile Zola

Lou had been a blur of red in Jo's memories of this
room, the bright spot of color in the endless waiting white. ~ Genevieve Valentine

She stared at him. Her head tipped to the side and she narrowed her eyes. "That's the best you can come up with? What kind of platitude is that?"
"Give me a second. I can do better." He lifted her hand, then reached for her other one. He pulled her close so they stood toe to toe. She shivered a little. He didn't think it had much to do with the cold. Her arms were bare, but the evening was warm. "Everything happens for a reason. God works in mysterious ways. There's a light at the end of the tunnel."
"You suck at this." But she was smiling.
She was so achingly beautiful. He slid his hands up her arms to her elbows so they were closer still. And then she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and he forgot how to breathe.
He stood in the shadows, holding her in his arms, wanting to do the right thing and afraid he'd screw it all up. Her hands nestled the small of his back, thumbs hooked through his belt. Her lips brushed against the sensitive base of his throat. Awareness burned through every single spot her body came in contact with his. This was Danni, all grown up. He wanted one little taste. Just a bit.
So he kissed her. And, without a second's hesitation, she kissed him back. The world around them rocked back on its heels.
Then some small noise interrupted - the sound of footsteps, passing too close. He lifted his head, not wanting any intrusion, and the moment ended as fast as it had begun. ~ Paula Altenburg

A crossroad. What a pain in the ass spot to end up in. (Abarai Renji, Bleach) ~ Tite Kubo

Because in addition to joining dangerous gangs and having parties, this Noah also goes out with girls, keeps his hair buzzed and tidy, hangs at The Spot, watches sports with Dad. For all other sixteen-year-old boys: fine. For Noah, it signifies one thing: death of the spirit. A book with the wrong story in it. ~ Jandy Nelson

They are very tame to me. God bless Noel, I'm sure he'll always have a spot on 'Bob's Full House', but I search for something with more bite and rage. ~ Steven Morrissey

After all, if God had wanted men to fuck other men, he'd have given them dicks and shoved a G-spot up their assholes! ~ Nathan Burgoine

I didn't put him in his place. I was acknowledging his blind spot. We all have them. It just takes the right push to be able to really see them. ~ Lauren Lola

If, when the prodigal came back to his father, there was the preparation of the fatted calf, and the music and dancing, and the gold ring and the best robe, what will be the preparation when we do not come home as prodigals, but as the bride prepared for her husband, or as the beloved children, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, coming home to the Father who shall see his own image in us, and rejoice over us with singing? ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What the hell is this stuff?" he muttered, frowning at the oily spot on the linen cloth. "Pearlman slathered it on me this morning."
"It's macassar oil. Gentlemen use it to keep their hair neat. Nicholas used it," she added pointedly.
"Well, tomorrow he's giving it up. I smell like a rotten apple."
"You do not. And I think it looks rather nice."
He sent her an incredulous look. "I look like an otter. And everything I put my head against gets greasy."
"That's why someone invented the antimacassar," she told him, almost smiling.
"The-aha!" He laughed as he made the connection. "Of course. First they invent something stupid, then something ugly to make up for it. We live in a wondrous age, Annie. ~ Patricia Gaffney

If I manage to write something that I consider good and valuable in a particular place, that spot automatically has a special aura for me. In Albania, there are two cities where I have written the majority of my work: Gjirokaster, my home city, and Tirana. ~ Ismail Kadare

The things that don't happen to us that we'll never know didn't happen to us. The nonstories. The extra minute to find the briefcase that makes you late to the spot where a tractor trailer mauled another car instead of yours. The woman you didn't meet because she couldn't get a taxi to the party you had to leave early from. All of life is a series of nonstories if you look at it that way. We just don't know what they are. ~ Anita Shreve

I also have a soft spot for spicy chicken wings. They are always best eaten at dives and sports bars, like Wogie's in the West Village, New York City, near my house. ~ Gail Simmons

I will say that growing up as a kid in an urban environment and having lived in cities all my life, the one achievement that everyone can look forward to is getting the perfect parking spot. ~ Saul Perlmutter

I began running so as to punish myself, left street after street behind me, pushed myself on with inward jeers, and screeched silently and furiously at myself whenever I felt like stopping. With the help of these exertions I ended up far along Pile Street. When I finally did stop, almost weeping with anger that I couldn't run any farther, my whole body trembled, and I threw myself down on a house stoop. "Not so fast!" I said. And to torture myself right, I stood up again and forced myself to stand there, laughing at myself and gloating over my own fatigue. Finally, after a few minutes I nodded and so gave myself permission to sit down; however, I chose the most uncomfortable spot on the stoop. ~ Knut Hamsun

I'm the only person who's ever opened the Oscars or done a spot on the Oscars without a script and having it on autocue. ~ Paul Hogan

Children listen to superstitious tales, the story goes, that that spot, in the heart of the "Big Cane," is a haunted place. For more than a quarter of a century, human voices had rarely, if ever, disturbed the silence of the clearing. Rank and noxious weeds had overspread the once cultivated field - serpents sunned themselves on the doorway of the crumbling cabin. It was indeed a dreary picture ~ Solomon Northup

Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot. ~ John Updike

Prying out a stump reminded him of how deeply a tree clung to the ground, how tenacious a hold it had on a place. Though he was not a sentimental man - he did not cry when his children died, he simply dug the graves and buried them - James was silent each time he killed a tree, thinking of its time spent in that spot. He never did this with the animals he hunted - they were food, and transient, passing through this world and out again, as people did. But trees felt permanent - until you had to cut them down. ~ Tracy Chevalier

If we understand many more things than other people, we owe it to our nervous system which is far more disturbed. One says 'I'm sad' but no one realizes what is the cause of his/her sadness; it may come from the stomach; or from a tune we have just listened to and which failed to impress us on the spot; or it may come from frustrated sexual desire ... It is not easy to see beyond symbolic forms of expression. People don't realize that you can negate the progress of humanity because your feet hurt. It is important to see beyond that which is given; and yet, once you see it, nothing matters. ~ Emil Cioran

Commercials are also any opportunity to meet new crew and work with new kind of rigs. You can explore working with different people without having to make the full commitment of having to do an entire feature film with them and see whether you like them. Also it's great for testing out new equipment, like on the last spot we just did, I used a lot of drone technology, really cutting edge drone stuff, more than I've ever done before, and it worked out really really well. ~ Paul W. S. Anderson

Chessie ... shit, Chessie, I love you so bad." His teeth on her throat, biting hard, his lips soothing the spot. "So fucking much, so ... so bad. ~ Stacia Kane

I'm hard pressed to give an example on the spot of a president who explicitly spoke of the vindication of history, but I'm confident that there are many such examples. ~ David Greenberg

I would ask if you miss me like I miss you, so that there is not another spot in all the world that seems to mean anything at all, but where you are. ~ Jo Baker

Fright is something one can never get over. When a warrior is caught in such a tight spot he would simply turn his back to the ally without thinking twice. A warrior cannot indulge thus he cannot die of fright. A warrior allows the ally to come only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple with the ally he opens up his gap and lurches out, grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down and maintains his stare on him for exactly the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally and lets him go. A warrior, my little friend, is the master at all times ~ Carlos Castaneda

As for the danger of alienating people with good intentions - well, one of the things that I learned from RaceFail (and also from general experience) was that people with good intentions are the ones to fear most. The overt racists are easy to deal with. You can spot them coming a mile away. But the well-intentioned people are scarier. They might not intend harm, but in most cases they haven't thought about all the racist (and other "-ist") messages they've absorbed from society. They haven't done the basic groundwork necessary to purge themselves of that passively-absorbed "-ism". So they say the most incredibly hurtful, self-absorbed, and utterly useless things, then compound the problem by getting upset when they're called on it. I liken these people to sleeper agents - they seem OK at first, but then they suddenly "activate" and stab you in the back, and then they come out of their fugue and freak because there's blood on their hands and they don't know how it got there and they refuse to accept that they're the ones who put it there, OMG, OMG. Meanwhile, you're on the floor bleeding out, unnoticed because of their histrionics.

The rage of RaceFail made many of these well-intentioned sleeper agents wake up. So while yes, I think the anger risked alienating some of them, I'm fine with that. They were always dangerous; I haven't lost anything by their alienation. The ones who wake up are a gain (or they will be, once they shift from "not causing harm" anymore ~ N.K. Jemisin

I'm sure you've had many musicians in your soft spot. ~ Caisey Quinn

I make predictions about what I'm going to do before a fight, that makes me nervous because I've gotten so good at it until people really look for me to do it.If I say the man's going to fall in round five, like your man Henry Cooper here, he was stopped in round five but it was on a cut - it wasn't because he was out.But usually 'm on the spot with my predictions and some people really gamble and bet money on the rounds I say. ~ Muhammad Ali

I've actually been in situations where I've turned down a lot of money to continue on, in certain shows, or to do something that would have lasted years when I didn't even like it. I didn't want to be in any one spot for years, unless I really believed in it, and I really believe in 'Being Human.' ~ Samuel Witwer

The Solent was one the worse stretches of sea in England; the current and tides were atrocious, but it was summer and this time the currents and tides were predictable. However, I did not know this; I picked a spot that I could see from the phone, where I would swim from. ~ Stephen Richards

So it's actually way easier just to humor these men who grew up watching movies where the girl doesn't like the hero until he's been persistent enough to make her like him. This is the grease that keeps the gears of the heteronormativity machine spinning, obviously, but it's just easier to slip out of an awkward situation with an awkward guy than it is to call out the misogyny inherent in what he's doing. It's a tough spot to be in, but also this is coming from an angry dyke who's also trans and who, at one point, had society try to use her as a vessel for that kinda of misogyny. ~ Imogen Binnie

Considering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything
evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing
it was surprising how rarely people thought in evolutionary terms. It was a human blind spot. We look at the world around us as a snapshot when it was really a movie, constantly changing. ~ Michael Crichton

Eric Steele was strapped in and rubbing a rag over his father's 1911. Demo had brought the pistol with the rest of Steele's
gear on board the C-17. In the cockpit, the pilot pushed the throttle forward, shoving Steele back in his seat. He barely
noticed because he was thinking about the first time his father let him hold the pistol. It had felt so heavy in his hands
back then.


So much I never got to ask him.

He ran his thumb over the spot where the serial number should have been. It was silver and all traces of the file marks were
smoothed out by years of use. The pistol was one of John Moses Browning's masterpieces, the same design that the American
infantryman had carried in the Battle of Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Korea, and Vietnam. It was the only thing he had to remind
him of the father he never really knew.


Steele had made the pistol his own by modifying it to shoot 9mm, adding a threaded barrel, and installing suppressor sights,
which were taller than the factory ones. It was his gun now, and he slipped it away before taking an amphetamine tablet out
of his pocket and downing it with a sip of water. ~ Sean Parnell

The conviction that life has a purpose is rooted in every fibre of man, it is a property of the human substance. Free men give many names to this purpose, and think and talk a lot about its nature. But for us the question is simpler. Today, in this place, our only purpose is to reach the spring. At the moment we care about nothing else. Behind this aim there is not at the moment any other aim. In the morning while we wait endlessly lined up in roll-call square for the time to leave for work, while every breath of wind penetrates our clothes and runs in violent shivers over our defenceless bodies, and everything is grey around us, and we are grey; in the morning, when it is still dark, we all look at the sky in the east to spot the first signs of a milder season, and the rising of the sun is commented on every day: today a little earlier than yesterday, today a little warmer than yesterday, in two months, in a month, the cold will call a truce and we will have one enemy less. Today the sun rose bright and clear for the first time from the horizon of mud. It is a Polish sun, cold, white, distant, and only warms the skin, but when it dissolved the last mists a murmur ran through our colourless numbers, and when even I felt its lukewarmth through my clothes I understood how men can worship the sun. ~ Primo Levi

When looking at the evidence of feeding on large prey, you can see every size tooth from hatchling to adult in one spot. The babies may have been fed in the nest until they were full grown, like in eagles and hawks. ~ Robert T. Bakker

They were the good old days. Don't give up hope in the bad new
days, which will become then good old days. We appreciate Kennedy because he was killed; Martin Luther King was a great man. If you'd meet Naropa or Tilopa on the spot you'd be pissed off. History is very deceptive, reality is more important. There is a piece of philosophy for you. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

It seems jolly on the page. But imagine poverty, violence, natural disasters, or political fear driving you away from everything you know. Imagine how bad things get to make you leave behind your family, your friends, your lovers; your home, as humble as it might be; your church, say. Let's take it further - you've said good-bye to the graveyard, the dog, the goat, the mountains where you hunted, your grade school, your state, your favorite spot on the river where you fished and took time to think. ~ Luis Alberto Urrea

We clutter the earth with our inventions, never dreaming that possibly they are unnecessary - or disadvantageous. We devise astounding means of communication, but do we communicate with one another? We move our bodies to and fro and incredible speeds, but do we really leave the spot we started from? Mentally, morally, spiritually, we are fettered. What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning? ~ Henry Miller

People who expect to feel guilty tend to be more sympathetic, to put themselves into other people's shoes, to think about the consequences of their behaviour before acting, and to treasure their morals. As a result they are less prone to lie, cheat or behave immorally when they conduct a business deal or spot an opportunity to make money, studies suggest. They are also likely to make better employees because people who think less about the future results of their actions are more likely to be late, to steal or to be rude to clients. ~ David D. Burns

They are sacred, modest rendezvous between maidens," she said. "Being a library, it's quiet and only certain people come here, so there aren't many interruptions. They say that ever since before anyone can remember, it's been a popular rendezvous spot for girls who long to see each other. People started calling it 'The Secret Garden.' Although the meetings are called 'rendezvous,' that doesn't necessarily mean that anything particularly 'big' happens. ~ Anonymous

All I had to do was stick my face into this gruesome mess and bite off the young sheep's testicles. Dag a hogget. I had good teeth. I put my nose into this awful-smelling mess, my teeth solidly around the balls of the six-month-old sheep, and took a bite while I held him upside down. My nose was in fur and ordure. I bit and spat out the product into a pile of what they called prairie oysters. We have them in America too: delicious to eat, but not delicious to remove. They said this was the most sanitary way to de-ball a sheep. After I was done, I passed the sheep onto the next man, who put a little coal tar on the same spot for purposes of cleansing and closing up the wound.
The sheep never let out a bleat. ~ Errol Flynn

Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair-consisting of positive expectations for favorable outcomes. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Munroe stared at the sky. Cursed her weakness, her inability to block out what it would mean to knowingly deliver the innocent into the same hell that had birthed her to life. In this moment of decision she condemned to death the one she would risk anything to save. To the night, Munroe whispered good-bye. Opened the floodgates to Gehenna - that place of the wicked, that place of the dead - and here in this deserted spot, she buried her soul. ~ Taylor Stevens

I bet you have girls hanging all over you. Dozens would probably kill to be in my spot and here I am, allergic to your bread."
I looked up. "Why? Because of my near godlike perfection? ~ J. Lynn

That spot was taken," Kara sat up to look at them. Stylized, short, black hair with bangs. Piercing blue eyes. Proper posture. Lean. It was Oliver.

"I don't think a bag counts as a person," he smiled down at her. ~ Alexis Tiger

When the doctors showed me an X-ray of my brain, they pointed to a black hole on the upper left side and told me that all memory from that spot was dead. I thought to myself that I hoped that's where I kept 'The Orange Blossom Special.' ~ Johnny Gimble

The infant was standing on a spot in someone else's story, during a moment of her own. ~ Lemony Snicket

When Holly Short had opened the door of her makeshift basement cell, she had found her helmet bouncing on the spot in front of her with a 3-D image of Foaly's face projected onto it. That is really creepy, ~ Eoin Colfer

Visualize the conversations your friends have about how they all knew you'd never be able to make it. Imagine having to explain quitting to every single person who knew you were going to BUD/S. You have to face them. You have to live with many of them. Imagine trying to find a way to overcome the shame of failing. How long is it going to take for them to stop thinking of you as a failure, a quitter, a pussy? How long until anyone takes anything you say seriously again? Visualize being sent to a crappy ship, an undesignated Seaman. Imagine, if you will, a life below deck where you spend 18 hours chipping paint and repainting the spot you chipped. Imagine not seeing the sun for days or weeks at a time. This picture is worse than anything in BUD/S. Experience the shame and humiliation of quitting once in your head. Feel how much you hate yourself for giving up on your dream. Then never, ever, ever experience it in real life. ~ Mark Owens

Love is everyone's blind spot. Or love and fear. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

A few years have gone and come around when we were sittin' at our favorite spot in town and you looked at me, got down on one knee. Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle; the whole town came and our mammas cried. And you said "I do.", and I did, too. Take me home where we met so many years before; we'll rock our babies on the very front porch. After all this time, you and I. And I'll be eighty-seven you'll be eighty-nine, I'll still look at you like the stars that shine. In the sky. Oh, my my my. ~ Taylor Swift

Retire from the world each day to some private spot. Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God's presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them. Listen for the inward voice till you learn to recognize it. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

But correspondents are a wily bunch. Having stashed their typewriters, crossed the border, changed their clothes, and counted to ten, they began slipping back into the country one by one. So in 1928, the Foreign Press Office was opened anew on the top floor of a six-story walk-up conveniently located halfway between the Kremlin and the offices of the secret police - a spot that just happened to be across the street from the Metropol. Thus, ~ Amor Towles

On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'

Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever - which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.

("The Three Strangers") ~ Thomas Hardy

You have a soft spot. Contrary to popular belief, it is not where you are weak, it is the gateway to indestructible power. ~ Susan Piver

As different as Emily Dickinson's parents' life in America seems from that of Sitaram Gawande's in India, both relied on systems that shared the advantage of easily resolving the question of care for the elderly. There was no need to save up for a spot in a nursing home or arrange for meals-on-wheels. It was understood that parents would just keep living in their home, assisted by one or more of the children they'd raised. In contemporary societies, by contrast, old age and infirmity have gone from being a shared, multigenerational responsibility to a more or less private state - something experienced largely alone or with the aid of doctors and institutions. How did this happen? How did we go from Sitaram Gawande's life to Alice Hobson's? ~ Atul Gawande

My back hit the wall. He closed in with an almost terrifying intensity. His muscular body boxed me in.
"Rogan," I warned. In my head, a song played over and over, singing to me in a seductive voice, Rogan, Rogan, Rogan, sex . . . want . . .
"Remember that dream you had?" His voice was low, commanding.
"Rogan!"
The delicious warmth danced around my neck.
"Where I had no clothes?"
The warmth split and slid over me, over the sensitive nerves in the back of my neck, over my collarbone, around my breasts, cupping them and sliding fast to the tips, tightening my nipples, then sliding down, over my stomach, over my sides and butt, down between my legs. It was everywhere at once, and it flowed over me like a cascade of sensual ecstasy, overloading my senses, overriding my reason, and rendering me speechless. I hurtled through it, trying to sort through the sensations and failing. My head spun.
He was right there, masculine, hot, sexy, so incredibly sexy, and I wanted to taste him. I wanted his hands on me. I wanted him to press himself against the aching spot between my legs.
His arms closed around me. His face was too close, his eyes enticing, compelling, excited. "Let's talk about that dream, Nevada."
I was trapped. I had nowhere to go. If he kissed me, I would melt right here. I would moan and beg him, and I would have sex with him right here, in the Galleria, in public.
A spark of pain drained down my arm, driven by pure instinct ~ Ilona Andrews

You are a fucking hoot, Fred. I'm officially making you my new best friend. It's quite an honoured and sought after position, I'll have you know. So far I have a grand total of four friends in Dublin. You've currently just snagged yourself the top spot."
"Oh stop, Viv, I'm welling up, here," I reply drily. ~ L. H. Cosway

This is my friend Veronica," I told him. "And this is Kaidan."
"Oh, I've heard all about you." Veronica gave him a big smile.
His brow elevated, but he didn't take the bait. Instead, he stared at me funny. "Nice wart." Leaning forward without touching me, he flicked the wart from the tip of my nose.
Veronica let out a loud cackle, proving she should be the one in my costume.
"I told you it was stupid!" She gloated.
With my pointer finger, I moved the paint around my nose to fill in the blank spot. When I finished, he was still watching me.
"Your hair's grown a lot," I said to him.
"So has your bottom."
My eyes rounded and blood rushed to my face. Veronica hooted with hilarity, bending at the waist. Even Jay let out a loud snicker, the traitor.
I wished Kaidan weren't so perceptive, but it was true. The feminine curves that had always eluded me were finally making an appearance. Stupid tight dress.
"Dude, you can get away with anything," said the pirate to the straight-faced ape.
"I meant it as a compliment."
"That was awesome." Veronica grabbed Jay by the hand. "Come on. Let's go find me a drink."
She winked at me as they ambled away. I gave my attention to the dry, trampled grass and scattered cans for a moment before working up the nerve to say something.
"My dad gave me a cell phone." And a car. And a ton of money.
Kaidan set the ape head on the ground and pulled his phone from a fuzzy pocket, blowi ~ Wendy Higgins

Nothing comes cheap, though the educated eye will always spot very nice things for the least money. ~ Albert Hadley

We move the cows every day to a new spot which allows the grass time to recuperate and go through its what I call 'the teenage growth spurt.' ~ Joel Salatin

I told Kate I didn't love her in an argument. But I do! Those heated moments are the worst, because that's when you can do the most damage. And they're bad, because you always hit them in the spot where you know it hurts. ~ Peter Andre

Dumbledore:
I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.
Harry:
You mean ... that stuff's your thoughts?
Dumbledore:
Certainly. ~ J.K. Rowling

Want me to say it? Want me to confess what makes me an actual felon and reserves me a choice spot in hell?"

"Please, Alexandria Patra," Preton said, "tell me all your regrets."

Her eyes narrowed. "I taught children to surrender their developing minds to concepts like the greater good or the good of society which can't exist in any form in this world without actual kids being trampled underneath their untouchable banners."

Pointing at her own chest, she added, "I taught children that in order to live up to those 'higher' ideals they must be obedient - to others, must sacrifice their dreams - to the needs of others. I taught them it was more important to be a part of a group than to stand on their own judgment. I told the non-conforming kids they should feel guilty for wanting to live on their own terms."

Alexa swept a hand forward, pointing it at Preton. "I then delivered every ego-stripped, dream-crushed child to the power mongers of the world like you, who will use this universally accepted mirage of morality to control them. ~ S.W. Southwick

Lonny finishes his drink and stands. "So what's our plan?"

"You don't have to go," I tell him, shrugging out of Carmindor's jacket. "I'm sort of going AWOL, so it's not in your contract."

"Then as far as I'm concerned, I'm off the clock," he says, straightening his suit. "I can do whatever I want with my time, and I want to help you out. So what's the plan?"

"First," I say, "to the vending machines. With all this good luck, they gotta have an Orange Crush."

And holy gods of soda, Batman, by the glowing light of the great vending machines on the third floor, I spot a beautiful Orange Crush button, and when I push it an orange bottle rolls out. I crack the seal and drink to the sweet, sweet taste of victory.

"That's your plan?" Lonny says. "To drink a soda? ~ Ashley Poston