Staying Put Quotes

Sometimes, staying put, going sideways, or moving backward is actually the best way to eliminate what blocks or impedes your path. ~ Ryan Holiday

While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put. ~ Anne Tyler

Being in the audience of the State of the Union is not a passive experience. Every few minutes when the president completed a thought, everyone stood up to clap. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. The sound of the springs in the aged chairs of the House Chamber became a secondary soundtrack. I was distracted by my discomfort and began to dread the end of his sentences. But then I noticed that not every person stood up every single time. I realized they only stood up when he said something their side agreed with. I decided that no matter what he said next, I was going to stay seated. I was really hurting. I was going to sit one round out. Well, as soon as I'd made my mind up that I was staying put, President Obama made a statement and everyone stood up. Everyone. Not half of the room. Every person in the room except me. It happened far too fast for me to correct my mistake. What did he say? "We need equal pay for women." And I just sat there like a jerk. If the president himself had looked up and to the left, he'd have seen me just sitting there, seemingly opposed to equal pay for women! Good grief! I was not seated next to the first lady, thankfully. I made sure to stand up the rest of the time. ~ Noah Galloway

Love Letter"

Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no-
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter-
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.

And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Sylvia Plath

Maybe it wasn't about the moving to new places, but about the challenge of staying put. ~ Lisa Ko

...we can choose to reflect the places we see the lack of love in the world, or we could try to be stronger than our weaknesses, and shine a light on something better. We were facing down our own personal Goliaths. I wanted to invite her to stand with me and try the radical act of simply staying put. To tell the truth and trust that whatever comes next is going to be okay. ~ Sara Bareilles

I don't think we're in love anymore.
I think about sex constantly.
I hate your parents. I'm pretty sure they hate me.
Do you have any idea how fucked up this is?
I've been sleeping with my back to you for months now,
and you haven't touched me once.
I almost went home with the guy who gave me change
at the bank. I almost asked his name.
I don't think we're in love anymore.
We don't kiss like we used to. Your lips are always
cold and mine are always chapped.
Neither of us even apologize.
I haven't shaved in days and you haven't noticed.
I am insatiable.
I am a disaster just waiting to remember
the storm in her bones.
I am proud of this.
I want someone to fuck me so hard
that something inside of me snaps
and I can't stop screaming 'I love you, oh my God, I love you.'
I don't think we're in love anymore.
Sometimes, I genuinely think the sky is bleeding, and I don't
know how to stop it.
I don't think I am capable of staying put.
My bags are already packed. I've been waiting for you
to check the bedroom.
I don't think we're in love anymore.
I don't know whose fault it is.
Let's stop trying to make a broken thing work.
We were brave for trying.
We were brave for trying. ~ Caitlyn Siehl

Some days 'staying put' might feel the same as Going Nowhere.
Make a cup of tea, and wait for that feeling to pass. ~ Vivian Swift

I noticed the dudes in the ambulance were staying put; I hoped they were calling for backup, or maybe somebody who could do an exorcism, or maybe my pal Stephen King, because if anybody on earth could figure a way out of this mess, it'd be Uncle Stevie. ~ Tobe Hooper

Joan had told me a story once about some elephants in captivity somewhere, how as babies they were put into ankle cuffs with chains that were attached to spikes driven into the ground, which they couldn't pull out. They stopped trying within their first years, because it was frustrating and pointless, so they grew up believing that the spikes were stronger than they were. Apparently it never occurred to them to try again later when they were giant adult elephants perfectly capable of yanking the spikes out without even exerting much effort and running free into the jungle, so they wound up staying put next to these tiny little spikes that were now ridiculously weak in comparison to their powerful legs. Joan said we were like that, too. She said we humans often remained bound by old beliefs that had not real power aside from that which we placed upon them. She said our fears were the little tiny spikes we were sill seeing from the vantage point of the baby elephants, but now, my darling, she had told me, now we were mighty beasts who could uproot the spike any old time we were ready. (266) ~ Wendy Blackburn

None though as bowed, small-boned, as my own peasant legs, which in their backward sway and inward turn, shaped by years of adherence to hostile terrains, possess a history of staying put. ~ Philip Schultz

On my last walk, I arrived at the beach just as the sun was being swallowed up by the horizon, at the edge of the sea. I allowed the twin feelings of melancholy and joy, sadness and awe to settle, and waded into the water. I dunked my head and flipped over and floated on my back. Deep breaths, eyes closed. And then I had one of those moments that we promise to remember, but always forget; one of those moments that can save our lives. It was a sense of being completely alone and completely connected. Of missing everyone and everything and nothing, absolutely nothing at all. Of being utterly bereft and entirely fulfilled. And I understood, for that moment, for that life-saving moment that I'll soon forget, what it means to be alive. That life is a balancing act between the things we long for and the things we have, between contentment and being restless for other, for more, between gratitude and self-pity, between the draw of hope and the pull of despair. And somewhere amidst all of this, amongst the chaos of conflicting emotions that make up the human psyche, at some place that's at its centre only in a metaphorical sense, there is a state of peace. Not neutral, because the contradictions don't cancel each other out, but balanced. A state of being aware of the feelings on either side, but not participating in them, of feeling both the draw and the pull and staying put. Of experiencing everything and nothing. That's how I felt, for a moment, as I floated in the sea on my back. ~ Daphne Kapsali

Excerpted From Chapter One
I decided staying put in the alley was preferable to keeping the dead guy company, so I went outside and lit a Lucky Strike. The night air had gotten damper and chillier during the short time I was in the warehouse, or maybe it was just me.
Wisps of lacy fog were now sinking into the alley, and a skulking cat in search of dinner moved slowly along the opposite wall until he noticed me. He scurried off in a furry blur, eager to be far away from the evil invading his domain. The cat had better sense than me and I wished I could follow his example. ~ H.P. Oliver

You have to step through the gate, the false barrier of your critical mind, to see all the ways we habitually reject the very place our lives have landed us. And then, we have to stop plotting an escape. That's what practice is for: staying put. ~ Karen Maezen Miller

Todd:I had him!
His throat was there beneath my hand.
No, I had him!
His throat was there and now he'll never come again.
Mrs. Lovett: Easy now, hush love hush
I keep telling you, Whats your rush?
Todd: When? Why did I wait?
You told me to wait -
Now he'll never come again.
There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
And it's filled with people who are filled with shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long...

They all deserve to die.
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.
Because in all of the whole human race
Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two
There's the one staying put in his proper place
And the one with his foot in the other one's face
Look at me, Mrs Lovett, look at you.

No, we all deserve to die
Even you, Mrs Lovett, even I!
Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief
For the rest of us death will be a relief
We all deserve to die.

And I'll never see Johanna
No I'll never hug my girl to me - finished!
Alright! You sir, how about a shave?
Come and visit your good friend Sweeney.
You sir, too sir? Welcome to the grave.

I will have vengenance.
I will have salvation.
Who sir, you sir?
No ones in the chair, Come on! Come on!
Sweeney's. waiting. I want you bleeders.
You sir! Anybody!
Gentlemen now don't be shy!

Stephen Sondheim

I can't do any more 'Peep Show' because of my loyalties in Los Angeles to 'Two And A Half Men,' so I'm staying put there for the moment. I'm loving life is L.A. at the moment - I'm out there for work, as that is where the jobs are. ~ Sophie Winkleman

You know a wild spirit just by looking at them, they carry a vibe that doesn't appear often but when it does my god you won't forget them. They are always passing through lives, never staying put, but always remembered long after they have left. These souls are kindred spirits, they connect deeply or not at all. ~ Nikki Rowe

He believed a man should never be sober but never be drunk. And he believed in watching out for family, even if you had to stay sober for a few hours; it was that important. ~ Allan Dare Pearce

And she understood as I did that when you sat down and put your hands on the keys, it was not just a piano in front of you, it was a universe. ~ E.L. Doctorow

You will encounter many distractions and many temptations to put your goal aside: The security of a job, a wife who wants kids, whatever. But if you hang in there, always following your vision, I have no doubt you will succeed. ~ Larry Flynt

The woman smiles. The smile is neither pleasant nor unpleasant: it is a smile like fine silver plate, used for one occasion and polished and put away once finished. ~ Robert Jackson Bennett

This isn't the medieval era, my lord. I'll be damned if I need to put on a dog-and-pony show with a peer as part of a business deal."
"Speaking as the other half of the dog-and-pony show," Westcliff said sardonically, "I'm not fond of the idea either. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I asked her who he was and she said, "He was a man ahead of his time." She actually liked Malcolm X. She put him in nearly the same category as her other civil rights heroes, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt, A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kennedys - any Kennedy. When Malcolm X talked about "the white devil" Mommy simply felt those references didn't apply to her. ~ James McBride

I didn't grow up feeling smart and special, the world my oyster, born with a silver shucker in my hand. No one works harder than you, that's the way Zell and Juwon liked to put it. Everything I have is because I was the dutiful worker bee or because I have no other things to distract me, like girlfriends or wives, like mewling kids or family dogs or a love of weekend brunches and fantasy football, or a single, sad hobby, like solitaire or the Sunday jumble. I have this. ~ Megan Abbott

There are two ways to deal with a major setback: one is to pause, take a deep breath, clear your mind and go home, distract yourself for the evening, and come back fresh the next day to start over. The other is to immediately resubmerge, put your head under and dive to the bottom, work an hour longer than you did last night, and stay in the moment of what went wrong. While the first way is a good path toward adequacy, it is the second way that leads to important discoveries. One ~ Hope Jahren

Ruth once told me when I went to visit her at HMP Highpoint that it is surprising how much of what you imagine to be your innate sense of self actually comes from things that aren't one's self at all: people's reactions to the blouse you wear, the respectfulness of your family, the attentiveness of your friends, their approval of the pictures in your living room, the neatness of your lawn, the way people whisper your name. It is these exhibitions of yourself, as reflected in the people whom you meet, which give you comfort and your identity. Take them away, be put in a tiny room, and called by a number, and you begin to vanish. ~ Alexander Masters

Going to work every day was like my hair was on fire and all I had to put it out was a hammer. ~ Bethany McLean

How can I judge?" she said at last. "To me, he is a hero. To the world a monster." She let her head fall into her arms and started crying quietly. "I miss him! Curse him! I miss him!"
Mithorden put a hand on her shoulder and let her cry for a few minutes. A sad smile slowly spread across his face. "I'm glad you can forgive him," he said at last.
Luthiel lifted her head. "How do you know?"
Because you miss him. ~ Robert Fanney

When I write, I try to think back to what I was afraid of or what was scary to me, and try to put those feelings into books. ~ R.L. Stine

Put a man and a girl on stage and there is already a story; a man and two girls, there's already a plot. ~ George Balanchine

Search for inspiring quotes and put them on the walls of your bedroom. Read them before you go to bed and the first thing when you wake up in the morning. ~ Robert Cheeke

What?' Diane was enjoying listening to Cecil. She loved the end of his show, when he said, 'Good night, Night Vale, good night.' No matter how difficult her life was or how troublesome the news he was reporting, his voice and his sign-off put her at such ease. ~ Joseph Fink

Comedic actors can be looked at as a lower form because we have to put ourselves in a lower place than most of the audience. I think lofty emotions are somehow considered more special. The best stories in the world to me are the ones that elicit a real emotion, but have humour. ~ Jim Carrey

I don't put up with the shit you've handed me the last week because you're some fuckin' piece I want to conquer. I put up with it because I've liked you since you were eight years old. You made me laugh. You understood me. You looked out for me when no one else fuckin' bothered and you acted like you thought I could move mountains and I needed someone who thought that about me because my Dad sure as fuck didn't. ~ Kristen Ashley

He looked so strange without his guns.
So wrong.
'Okay? Now that the numb-fuck apprentices have the guns and the master's unarmed, can we please go? If something big comes out of the bush at us, Roland, you can always throw your knife at it.'
'Oh, that,' he murmured. 'I almost forgot.' He took the knife from his purse and held it out, hilt first, to Eddie.
'This is ridiculous!' Eddie shouted.
'Life is ridiculous.'
'Yeah, put it on a postcard and send it to the fucking Reader's Digest.' Eddie jammed the knife into his belt and then looked defiantly at Roland. 'Now can we go?'
'There is one more thing,' Roland said.
'Weeping, creeping Jesus!'
The smile touched Roland's mouth again. 'Just joking,' he said.
Eddie's mouth dropped open. Beside him, Susannah began to laugh again. The sound rose, as musical as bells, in the morning stillness. ~ Stephen King

As Liberal Democrats and proponents of federalism, we must put our heads above the parapet and recapture and disseminate the true meaning of federalism. We have to win the vocabulary before we succeed in the vision. ~ Charles Kennedy

From the beginning, I did not intend to create a typical classic fantasy. I wanted an organic, harmonious world where my story could evolve. If this world needed gnomes, I put them in there. As for drevalyankas, pikshas, bolugs and other totally original creatures, they appeared there somehow by themselves in the course of events, and then just began "to get under the feet of the main heroes" ... ~ Irina Lopatina

I'd heard you were dead."
"I heard you wear a red lace corset," I said matter-of-factly. "But I don't believe every bit of nonsense that gets rumored about. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

Revenge has been my lover for too long," he said, breath hot on my neck. He began sliding down my body, toward the floor, arms around me. "Power, my savior. I need to learn how to put you first, above those things. I need you to help me, to teach me. I don't want to love anything more than you, Eden, so please, I'm begging you, show me how. You need to be my everything. ~ Karina Halle

Was ninety percent sure." "I see," Clary said. There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. "What the hell was that for?" "The other ten percent," she said, ~ Cassandra Clare

Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesmen to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it .The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfold, as it were , with no sense of direction, and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul. ~ J.I. Packer

So I did something I've never done, and put your live above my own, because no matter how hard I try to convey it, I'm not heartless. I have a heart and... and it beats for you. ~ Emma Winters

He's coming off the bridge," said Serge. "The rocks will start soon." "Rocks?" "It's local tradition, and another reason I love the Keys." Serge stood and put on his sneakers. "It's our version of when those people went out to the overpasses and waved at O. J. Simpson during the slow-motion chase. Except in the Keys, when there's a high-speed pursuit on TV heading south, the locals line the road and wait for the car to come off the bridge to Key Largo. Last time was around Christmas." "You're right." Coleman pointed at the TV again. "They're lining the side of the road. They're throwing rocks." "And we're at Mile Marker 105, so that gives us about three minutes." Serge tightened the Velcro straps on his shoes. "Let's go throw rocks. ~ Tim Dorsey

You know, Silas shouldn't have something so indecent like this lying about," Ann said. "One of the children might see it." She brightened. "I know! We should put some clothes on it! That would make it all right, don't you think?"
"Oh, by all means. Do clothe the woman," Louisa said, laughter bubbling up from the back of her throat.
Ann flitted around the room looking for something appropriate. "Ah, this'll be fine," she said, her back to Louisa. She fooled with the thing a bit, then turned and held it up for Louisa's approval.
It took Louisa a second to recognize what Ann had chosen to clothe the poor beleaguered fertility goddess in, but as soon as she did, she burst into laughter.
Silas's drawers. Ann had clothed the carving in Silas's dirty drawers.
After that, Louisa couldn't stop laughing. Ann had tied the legs around the carving's neck so that the back side of the unlaced drawers covered her front. It was truly a site to behold. And when Ann looked at her in all innocence, obviously unaware that the lady's clothing was as indecent as the lady herself, Louisa laughed so hard her sides hurt.
"Louisa, are you alright?" Ann asked as she went to her friend's side. "I swear, you're behaving strange today. Really strange."
Louisa couldn't even speak. All she could do was laugh and point at the carving.
"This?" Ann asked as she held the carving up. "What's wrong? Don't you like her fine woolen dress?"
Louisa erupted in more peals of ~ Sabrina Jeffries

The trick to hiding something, she'd told him once, is to put it right out in plain sight. ~ Elizabeth Brundage

I tell my children now that they are older, 'If something happens to me ... don't make no big fuss over me. Don't make no big expense on my funeral. Don't put any pressure on the rest of the family. I've loved everybody, and I hope they loved me. But don't create this big expense for the family.' ~ B.B. King

Happy, however, I cannot be, absent from you and my darling little ones. I feel that nothing can ever compensate for the loss of the enjoyments I leave at home or can ever put my heart at tolerable ease...In reality, my attachments to home disqualify me for either business or pleasure abroad and the prospect of a detention here for eight or ten days, perhaps a fortnight, fills me with an anxiety which will best be conceived by my Betsey's own impatience...Think of me with as much tenderness as I do of you and we can not fail to be always happy. ~ Alexander Hamilton

If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of 100 people, with all existing human ratios staying the same, it would look like this: There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans. 80 would live in substandard housing. 70 would be unable to read. 50 would suffer from malnutrition. 50 per cent of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people. And all 6 would be citizens of the United States. ~ Ahdaf Soueif

Thanks for teaching us to talk. Thanks for teaching us to be of the world and in the world and to make our way. Thanks for teaching us to be alive! And thanks for staying inside of us. ~ Dave Isay

No statue has ever been put up to a critic. ~ Jean Sibelius

Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize motive and psychology whereas thrillers rely more heavily on action and plot. ~ Jon Meacham

If I'm on a bus and someone makes my blood boil, I'll pocket those emotions and put them in a song. ~ Jessie J.

He had to put down the sacks of sugar and coffee then. Because, though he could hold off a mob at the depot with no trouble, even he couldn't kiss a girl with his arms full of contraband. ~ Ann Rinaldi

You piss off a bard, and forget about putting a curse on you, he might put a satire on you. ~ Alan Moore

You go to bed, too, and don't fret, hear me? Things feel hard now, but it will pass. Everything passes, and something new comes along to fill the space.' As she spoke, her tone shifted. She wasn't talking about me anymore. 'You can't go around holding the worst thing you ever did in your hand, staring at it. You gotta cook supper, put gas in the car. ~ Joshilyn Jackson