Steam Quotes

Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got $260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it
lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding
sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money.
And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream.
Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that. ~ Jenny Downham

The queen appeared as innocent as one of those mountains which smoke a little, and then one day end up causing a whole civilization to become an art installation ~ Terry Pratchett

If you saw her in these moments, you might think she was collecting her thoughts in order to go forward. But I see it another way: Her mind is being overwhelmed by two processes that must simultaneously proceed at full steam. One is to deal with and live in the present world. The other is to re-experience and mourn something that happened long ago. It is as though her lightness pulls her toward heaven, but the extra gravity around her keeps her earthbound. ~ Steve Martin

Don't save it till the night before," she said, sitting on her desk and swinging her legs. "It will read like you wrote it the night before. I'm not interested in steam of consciousness. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Hallo! A great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding. ~ Charles Dickens

The steam of the kitchen felt like a form of amnesia, which Hazel liked. She decided she'd recommend working in a restaurant to anyone who was trying to forget everything they'd ever done. ~ Alissa Nutting

Her lips thinned, but she ignored the bait. "Schedules have been moved up in all departments, you know. Claire received her new reproduction assignment. It didn't include Tony." "Reproduction assignment? You mean, having a baby?" Leo could feel his face flushing. Somewhere within him, a long-controlled steam pressure began to build. "Do you hide what you're really doing from yourselves with those weasel-words, too? And here I thought the propaganda was just for us peons." Yei started to speak, but Leo overrode her, bursting out, "Good God! Were you born inhuman, or did you grow so by degrees - M.S., M.D., Ph.D. . . ." Yei ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Dilemmas of the Angels: Flight"

Before the angel there was something else -
not this coffee shop next to a drug rehabilitation center
filled with war veterans of the past, men and women
strapped to their chairs, birds straining to rise
from piles of feathers, bones, and blood.

Drenched in sweat and a little shaky
from too much caffeine, she takes flight,
a shining white-winged trumpeter swan
crossing open water, steam rising
from the feathers' barbs. Below her,
a cormorant, unfolding its black wings,
explodes from the surface, and even fish,
leaping from the oily sheen, glide
for a moment, gills pumping
in the poisonous atmosphere.

Such longing. How large
the muscles in our shoulders must be
to lift our wings even a single time. ~ David Romtvedt

The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion; but in mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they think they come under another. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

A room full of words that are nearly the truth but not quite, each note fluttering off the steam of its rose like a broken butterfly wing. ~ Lauren Oliver

None of us had been in love, not really, until now. Anything we had called love came back to us as mockery in the face of this sudden flight from reason. Andy had said he was in love with Missy, and it was a shame Missy was not in love with him. A daily lament rose from him like the steam of the heat from the pipes at school. Andy's mother hit the counter with her fist. "They're too young," she said, talking about Natalie and Dion, and we knew she was talking about their tongues running along the inside of each other's teeth and the suddenly anxious too-tight grip of her hand between his legs, and the taste of each other's skin, and the smell of each other's bodies, and the feel of him slipping inside her and her settling down over him, the shape of her mouth, the shape of his. She was talking about their bodies but thinking about the words they had used. Everyone knew. "Love," she finally growled, as if the creature itself had risen from her dreams to take over her kitchen. She gripped a package of spaghetti as if it was a club and stared at the wall, paralyzed by the idea of them out there. ~ Jason Brown

Gina hoisted herself up onto her elbows and gaped at Spike. "So that's the famous Spike I've been hearing so much about from your brothers? Damn, he is ugly."
Jesse, who'd stayed where he was, looked defensive. Spike was his baby, and you just don't go around calling Jesse's baby ugly.
"He's not so bad," I said, hoping Gina would get the message and shut up.
"Are you on crack?" Gina wanted to know. "Simon, the thing's only got one ear."
Suddenly, the large, gilt-framed mirror above the dressing table started to shake. It had a tendency to do this whenever Jesse got annoyed - really annoyed.
Gina, not knowing this, stared at the mirror with growing excitement. "Hey!" she cried. "All right! Another one!"
She meant an earthquake, of course, but this, like the one before, was no earthquake. It was just Jesse letting off steam.
Then the next thing I knew, a bottle of finger-nail polish Gina had left on the dressing table went flying and, defying all gravitational law, landed upside down in the suitcase she had placed on the floor at the end of the daybed, around seven or eight feet away.
I probably don't need to add that the bottle of polish - it was emerald green - was uncapped. And that it ended up on top of the clothes Gina hadn't unpacked yet.
Gina let out a terrified shriek, threw back the comforter, and dove to the floor, trying to salvage what she could. I, meanwhile, threw Jesse a very dirty look.
But all he said was, "Don' ~ Meg Cabot

question. On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, of the Calcutta and Burnach Steam Navigation Company, had met this moving mass five miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at first that he was in the presence of an unknown sandbank; he even prepared to determine its exact position when two columns of water, projected by the mysterious object, shot with a hissing noise a hundred and fifty feet up into the air. Now, unless the sandbank had been submitted to the intermittent eruption of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had to do neither more nor less than with an aquatic mammal, unknown till then, which threw up from ~ Jules Verne

Do whatever rejuvenates you. It might be a cooking class, cocktails with the girls, or just private time with the hubby. We all have our moments where we run out of steam because we've given everything we've got to everyone else. Whoever decided that was a good thing? It's not. Everyone needs to refuel. ~ Jada Pinkett Smith

Of valid economics pre-dating the Power Age (steam and electricity), there remains not a vestige. Of valid economics pre-dating the intensive and extensive use of electricity there will soon exist only rags and tatters. We still have to thank Adam Smith for insisting 'Consumption is the sole end and purpose of production;' but the old form of the law of demand and supply is outmoded, since supply has become practically inexhaustible. ~ Harriet Boyd Hawes

I'm obsessed with cleanliness for myself, so I will take a bath three times a day, sometimes a steam twice a day in addition to that. ~ Simon Cowell

Tea would arrive, the cakes squatting on cushions of cream, toast in a melting shawl of butter, cups agleam and a faint wisp of steam rising from the teapot shawl. ~ Gerald Durrell

Somewhere along the line Coltrane's soprano sax runs out of steam. Now it's McCoy Tyner's piano solo I hear, the left hand carving out a repetitious rhythm and the right layering on thick, forbidding chords. Like some mythic scene, the music portrays somebody's - a nameless, faceless somebody's - dim past, all the details laid out as clearly as entrails being dragged out of the darkness. Or at least that's how it sounds to me. The patient, repeating music ever so slowly breaks apart the real, rearranging the pieces. It has a hypnotic, menacing smell, just like the forest. ~ Haruki Murakami

The courts don't remove children from their home because the child underperformed at school or required extra long walks or a game of basketball in order to blow off the steam all 5-year-olds have. It's because the parents were unfit, not the kids. ~ Angela Featherstone

[After viewing the Palace of Electricity at the 1900 Trocadero Exposition in Paris]
[Saint-Gaudens and Matthew Arnold] felt a railway train as power; yet they, and all other artists, constantly complained that the power embodied in a railway train could never be embodied in art. All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres. ~ Henry Adams

In remaking the world in the likeness of a steam-heated, air-conditioned metropolis of apartment buildings we have violated one of our essential attributes-our kinship with nature. ~ Ross Parmenter

Of all the failed technologies that litter the onward march of science - steam carriages, zeppelins, armoured trains - none has been so catastrophic to prosperity as the last century's attempt to generate electricity from nuclear fission. ~ James Buchan

I shut my eyes and she was again the same as she used to be: she was the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup, she was a certain hour of the night and the promise of rest. ~ Graham Greene

Scottish men of a certain age have a black response to almost everything as a measure of how sophisticated they are. I have a very long fuse that eventually explodes after building up a nice head of steam, although it's only happened three times - usually at work when someone takes me for granted. ~ Peter Capaldi

To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility; it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh vast gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the living banished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God? ~ Thomas Carlyle

The first day at the power plant I found myself photographing some steam vents on the roof of the structure. And I remember consciously thinking that they were just like trees but they were metal. ~ John Sexton

Where in a medical dictionary does it say a woman cannot handle such things? What is a man's soul made of that a woman's is not? I had no idea my innards were composed of cotton and kittens, while yours are filled with steel and steam-driven parts. ~ Kerri Maniscalco

There is a driving force more powerful than steam, electricity and nuclear power: the will. ~ Albert Einstein

I...I'm sorry," Kylie mumbled.
"Don't you even try to talk your way out of me being pissed!" Burnett growled. "Not a word!"
"I just..."
"That's two words and I said not one!" he snapped, and he swiped his hand through the air for emphasis.
Kylie bit down on her lip, and wouldn't you know it that's when the tears started flowing. Big, fat, and fast tears. She sniffled and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Her breath caught in her chest. But damn it. Why couldn't this have happened when she was alone?
"Those tears do not affect me, young lady!" He pointed a finger at her. While she couldn't hear his heart beat to the rhythm of a lie, she heard it in his voice.

***

"I just..."
"Did I say you could talk?" he asked. He did three more pacing laps, as if working off steam, before he looked at her again. "Where were you going, Kylie?"
When she just looked at him, he bit out, "Answer me."
"You said I couldn't talk. ~ C.C. Hunter

Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day and cost us nothing. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Soft, the snow falling/Steam spiraling from coffee/The slain cold and still ~ Garth Nix

Now into the small ceramic pan I grate the block of couverture. Almost at once the scent rises, the dark and loamy scent of bitter chocolate from the block. At this concentration it is slow to melt; the chocolate is very low in fat, and I will have to add butter and cream to the mixture to bring it to truffle consistency. But now it smells of history; of the mountains and forests of South America' of felled wood and spilled sap and campfire smoke. It smells of incense and patchouli; of the black gold of the Maya and the red gold of the Aztec; of stone and dust and of a young girl with flowers in her hair and a cup of pulque in her hand.
It is intoxicating; as it melts, the chocolate becomes glossy; steam rises from the copper pan, and the scent grows richer, blossoming into cinnamon and allspice and nutmeg; dark undertones of anise and espresso; brighter notes of vanilla and ginger. Now it is almost melted through. A gentle vapor rises from the pan. Now we have the true Theobroma, the elixir of the gods in volatile form, and in the steam I can almost see-
A young girl dancing with the moon. A rabbit follows at her heels. Behind her stands a woman with her head in shadow, so that for a moment she seems to look three ways-
But now the steam is getting too thick. The chocolate must be no warmer than forty-six degrees. Too hot, and the chocolate will scorch and streak. Too cool, and it will bloom white and dull. I know by the scent and the level of steam that we ar ~ Joanne Harris

No steam or gas drives anything until it is confined. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, and disciplined. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

He passed into the galley and was greeted by a cloud of fragrant steam. The exotic scent of spices mingled with the tang of roasting meat. Startled, Gabriel choked on a sip from a tankard. In the corner, Stubb quickly shoved something behind his back. The old men's eyes shone with more than holiday merriment.
"Happy Christmas, Gray." Gabriel extended the tankard to him. "Here. We poured you some wine."
Gray waved it off with a chuckle. "That my new Madeira you're sampling?"
Gabriel nodded as he downed another sip. "Thought I should taste it before you serve it to company. You know, to be certain it ain't poisoned." He drained the mug and set it down with a smile. "No, sir. Not poisoned."
"And the figs? The olives? The spices? I assume you checked them all, too? For caution's sake, of course."
"Of course," Stubb said, pulling his own mug from behind his back and taking a healthy swallow. "Everyone knows you can't trust a Portuguese trader."
Gray laughed. He plucked an olive from a dish on the table and popped it into his mouth. Rich oil coated his tongue. "Did you find the crate easily enough?" he asked Stubb, reaching for another olive.
The old steward nodded. "It's all laid out, just so. Candles, too."
"Feels like Christmas proper." Gabriel tilted his head. "Miss Turner even gave me a gift."
Gray followed the motion, squinting through the steam.
I'll be damned. ~ Tessa Dare

I had an overwhelming sense of the lonliness of this city - a trillion souls in their bedrooms, high in the cliffs of windows. I thought of what was underneath it all - I thought of the electricty cables, steam, water, fire, subway trains and lava in the city's guts, the subterranean rumbling of trains and earthquakes. I thought of the dead souls from the war, concreted over. ~ Mo Hayder

I was sort of like a kid in a candy store, realizing it was fun making beats without the perceived burden that every track I did had to be a some progressive sample masterpiece. It was nice to blow off steam and work on those songs. For me, that's what 'The Outsider' was about in general: forget everything, I'm just gonna follow my own music, and make the music I want to make. ~ DJ Shadow

What you're doing is building a horrible kind of logic. People read what you write and they say, 'Yes, he is talking about things that really happen,' and they keep reading, and it makes sense to them. You're explaining things that can't be defended, and the explanations themselves are mad, just bizarre - but you offer them with such confidence. It was because she kept the chain on the door; it was because he needed to let off steam after a hard day's scraping and bowing at work; it was because she was irritating and stupid; it was because she lied to him, made a fool of him; it was because she had to die, she just had to, it makes dramatic sense; it was because 'nothing is more poetic than the death of a beautiful woman'; it was because of this, it was because of that. It's obscene to make such things reasonable. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

I think magic went out when people began to have steam-engines, and newspapers, and telephones and wireless telegraphing. ~ E. Nesbit

It is an extraordinary fact but a true one that there are thousands of men in Britain who will never need Viagra as long as steam trains are in operation. ~ Bill Bryson

Let's loosen up some time and take a break to re-calibrate our life. We need no endless over-thinking, though. Let's just connect the dots, set the scene, and steam ahead. ("On a casual day without a tie") ~ Erik Pevernagie

There was no near sound - no steam-engine at work with beat and pant - no click of machinery, or mingling and clashing of many sharp voices; but far away, the ominous gathering roar, deep-clamouring. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

The late 90s were crazy science-fictional if you were inside the superheated steam bubble of the dot-com 1.0 industry. ~ Charles Stross

Same result, only I'd be steam-cooked instead of roasted. ~ Jim Butcher

One morning while standing at a café counter staring at the magnificently thick brows of the man making my coffee, I discovered one should not gaze too long at faces unless one is prepared to fall in love again. As I watched the warm air of the coffee machine steam his eyeglasses, as I noticed him squint behind the fog, as he made a flower pattern in the foam of my coffee, I felt overcome with love. Faces have a near-unwatchable intimacy, particularly in a world in which everything perishes in the end. It is difficult to look as we choose, without emotional consequence. ~ Kyo Maclear

We went to a movie, Marlboro Man and me, longing for the quiet time in the dark. We couldn't find it anywhere else--my parents' house was bustling with people and plans and presents, and Marlboro Man had some visiting cousins staying with him on the ranch. A dim movie theater was our only haven, and we took full advantage of being only one of two couples in the entire place. We reverted back to adolescence, unashamed, cuddling closer and closer as the movie picked up steam. I took it even further, draping my leg over his and resting my hand on his tan bicep. Marlboro Man's arm reached across my waist as the temperature rose between us. Two days before our wedding, we were making out in a dark, hazy movie theater. It was one of the most romantic moments of my life. ~ Ree Drummond

What's a Hot Steam?" asked Dill. "Haven't you ever walked along a lonesome road at night and passed by a hot place?" Jem asked Dill. "A Hot Steam's somebody who can't get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an' if you walk through him, when you die you'll be one too, an' you'll go around at night suckin' people's breath - " "How can you keep from passing through one?" "You can't," said Jem. "Sometimes they stretch all the way across the road, but if you hafta go through one you say, 'Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don't suck my breath.' That keeps 'em from wrapping around you - ~ Harper Lee

The novel begins in a railway station, a locomotive huffs, steam from a piston covers the opening of the chapter, a cloud of smoke hides part of the first paragraph. ~ Italo Calvino

His most frequent ailment was the headache which he used to relieve by inhaling the steam of coffee. ~ Samuel Johnson

The bathhouse had been thick with the steam rising off the water and Jaime had come walking through that mist naked as his name day, looking half a corpse and half a god.He climbed into the tub with me, she remembered, blushing. ~ George R R Martin

The steam of meat darkens the light of the spirit ... One hardly can have virtue when one enjoys meat meals and feasts ... ~ Saint Basil

Desire is the ingredient that changes the hot water of mediocrity to the steam of outstanding success. ~ Zig Ziglar

One might go to the bakery, perhaps," he said. "But did you know the baker has tuberculosis? All the people here run around in a highly infectious state. The baker's daughter has tuberculosis too, it seems to have something to do with the runoff from the cellulose factory, with the steam that the locomotives have spewed out for decades, with the bad diet that people eat. Almost all of them have cankered lung lobes, pneumothorax and pneumoperitoneum are endemic. They have tuberculosis of the lungs, the head, the arms and legs. All of them have tubercular abscesses somewhere on their bodies. The valley is notorious for tuberculosis. You will find every form of it here: skin tuberculosis, brain tuberculosis, intestinal tuberculosis. Many cases of meningitis, which is deadly within hours. The workmen have tuberculosis from the dirt they dig around in, the farmers have it from their dogs and the infected milk. The majority of the people have galloping consumption. Moreover," he said, "the effect of the new drugs, of streptomycin for example, is nil. Did you know the knacker has tuberculosis? That the landlady has tuberculosis? That the landlady has tuberculosis? That her daughters have been to sanatoria on three occasions? Tuberculosis is by no means on the way out. People claim it is curable. but that's what the pharmaceutical industry says. In fact, tuberculosis is as incurable as it always was. Even people who have been inoculated against it come down with it. Often those who h ~ Thomas Bernhard

He waited for her to say something. Anything. But she only watched him watching her, their equally ragged breathing fighting for dominance. With a flick of his fingers, he slipped beneath the cotton and absorbed the feel of her delicate skin, now way past warm. Past even hot. She burned for him. Skating lower, he brushed her thatch of damp curls. His heartbeat kicked up and that lightheaded sensation overtook him again, stealing his attention from her face for as long as it took him to get control. Then he met her eyes once more before he slid into the steam. ~ Cari Quinn

Since his mother died I have seen him steam a cucumber thinking it was zucchini. That's the kind of thing that turns my heart right over. ~ Amy Hempel

She's an old lady," Barron says. "And she's been locked up for years. Let her have some fun. She needs to blow off steam. Seduce old dudes. Lose money at canasta. ~ Holly Black

The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car ... a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little. ~ Ben Sweetland

Scientists who study play, in animals and humans alike, are developing a consensus view that play is something more than a way for restless kids to work off steam; more than a way for chubby kids to burn off calories; more than a frivolous luxury. ~ Robin Marantz Henig

An argument would have begun to steam and boil and sputter - and you know how arguments end. Even if I had convinced him that he was wrong, his pride would have made it difficult for him to back down and give in. ~ Dale Carnegie

He sent you a text message that read: FIre Sign - You're compatible with all signs. Your blood group breathes disappointment and happiness. You stick your tongue in the woman's mouth in order to cool down. The fog that burns on the ceiling is the steam of sweat. You buy pins and colored pictures from the shop. You pin them on your flesh when you receive a guest. The firewood comes to you throughout the night, wrapped in nightmares. When you wake up you have a bath on fire. You eat on fire. You read the newspapers on fire. You smoke a cigarette on fire. In the coffee cup you come across prophecies of fire. You laugh on fire. You have your lungs checked at the hospital, and they find a spring of errors that looks like a tumor. You dream of the final act: It goes out. ~ Hassan Blasim

When everyone is seated, Galen uses a pot holder to remove the lid from the huge speckled pan in the center of the table. And I almost upchuck. Fish. Crabs. And...is that squid hair? Before I can think of a polite version of the truth-I'd rather eat my own pinky finger than seafood-Galen plops the biggest piece of fish on my plate, then scoops a mixture of crabmeat and scallops on top of it. As the steam wafts its way to my nose, my chances of staying polite dwindle. The only think I can think of is to make it look like I'm hiccupping instead of gagging. What did I smell earlier that almost had me salivating? It couldn't have been this.
I fork the fillet and twist, but it feels like twisting my own gut. Mush it, dice it, mix it all up. No matter what I do, how it looks, I can't bring it near my mouth. A promise is a promise, dream or no dream. Even if real fish didn't save me in Granny's pond, the fake ones my imagination conjured up sure comforted me until help arrived. And now I'm expected to eat their cousins? No can do.
I set the fork down and sip some water. I sense Galen is watching. Out of my peripheral, I see the others shoveling the chum into their faces. But not Galen. He sits still, head tilted, waiting for me to take a bite first.
Of all the times to be a gentleman! What happened to the guy who sprawled me over his lap like a three-year-old just a few minutes ago? Still, I can't do it. And they don't even have a dog for me to feed under the table, w ~ Anna Banks

It is not possible that you will repent unless you are aware of your sin; it is not likely that you will look to Christ unless you first know what it is for which you are to look to him. Therefore, I pray you, set apart some season every day, or at least some season as often as you can get it, in which the business of your mind shall be to take your longitude and latitude, that you may know exactly where you are. You may be drifting towards the rocks, and you may be wrecked before you know your danger. I implore you, do not let your ship go at full steam through a fog; but slacken speed a bit, and heave the lead, to see whether you are in deep waters or shallow. I am not asking you to do more than any kind and wise man would advise you to do; do I even ask you more than your own conscience tells you is right? Sit alone a while, that you may carefully consider your case. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

They're a damn nuisance - I've got one in my bathroom and every time I run my bath the steam sets it off. ~ Prince Philip

The steel kettle shone, a slow furl of steam at its spout, vaguely suggestive of genie and lamp. Oh, grant me a wish, just the one. ~ John Banville

I've always loved joining clubs--although, in truth, they're usually book clubs." ~Robecca Steam ~ Gitty Daneshvari

What do I think was modernism's subject, then? What was it about? No doubt you can guess my starting point. It was about steam - in both the Malevich and the de Chirico a train still rushes across the landscape. It was about change and power and contingency, in other words, but also control, compression, and captivity - an absurd or oppressive orderliness is haunting the bright new fields and the sunlit squares with their eternally flapping flags. Modernism presents us with a world becoming a realm of appearances - fragments, patchwork quilts of color, dream-tableaux made out of disconnected phantasms. But all of this is still happening in modernism, and still resisted as it is described. The two paintings remain shot through, it seems to me, with the effort to answer back to the flattening and derealizing-the will to put the fragments back into some sort of order. Modernism is agonized, but its agony is not separable from weird levity or whimsy. Pleasure and horror go together in it. Malevich may be desperate, or euphoric. He may be pouring scorn on the idea of collective man, or spelling the idea out with utter childish optimism. We shall never know his real opinions. His picture entertains both.

Modernism was certainly about the pathos of dream and desire in twentieth- century circumstances, but, again, the desires were unstoppable, ineradicable. The upright man will not let go of the future. The infinite still exists at the top of the tower. Even in the Picasso ~ T.J. Clark

So all that fame had lasted less than a hundred years! Les Orientales, Les Meditations, La Comedie Humaine - forgotten, lost, unknown! Yet here were huge crates of books which giant steam cranes were unloading in the courtyards, and buyers were crowding around the purchase desk. But one of them was asking for 'Stress Theory' in twenty volumes, another for an 'Abstract of Electric Problems', this one for 'A Practical Treatise for the Lubrication of Driveshafts', and that one for the latest 'Monograph on Cancer of the Brain'. 'How strange!' mused Michel. 'All of science and industry here, just as at school, nothing for art!' I must sound like a madman asking for literary works here - am I insane? ~ Jules Verne

Everyone knew Russia's ambitions extended to the Crimea, but a few years earlier some steam was let out of the kettle when the pro-nationalist Ukrainian president was replaced by a pro-Russian successor. The fate of the Black Sea fleet in the port of Sevastopol seemed secure, and Russia went about its business. ~ Tom Clancy

You build up a head of steam. If you're four days out of the studio, on the fifth day you really crash in there. You will kill anybody who disturbs you on that fifth day, when you desperately need it. ~ Susan Rothenberg

You all know how powerful and varied are the effects of which steam engines are capable; with them has really begun the great development of industry which has characterised our century before all others. ~ Hermann Von Helmholtz

There was one day where I had to be hysterical all day, then of course it's going to affect you. You're going to go home and feel drained, or feel like you need to let off steam. ~ Gemma Arterton

The smoke and the fire and the speed, the action and the sound, and everything that goes together, [the steam engine] is the most beautiful machine that we ever made, there's just nothing like it. ~ O. Winston Link

The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to a carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man. ~ Thomas Jefferson

At some point in the evening Dellarobia had stopped being amazed that Ovid had turned into someone new, and understood he had become himself, in the presence of his wife. With the sense of a great weight settling, she recognized marriage. Not the precarious risk she's balanced for years against forbidden fruits, something easily lost in a brittle moment by flying away or jumping a train to ride off on someone else's steam. She was not about to lose it. She'd never had it. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

His dreams were getting more frightful - rising black swirls of water, cars floating by like river bugs - but he didn't know much about how to build a boat. The steam box was a start, even if he couldn't tell Annie, even though the line between faith and becoming unhinged seemed perilously narrow. ~ Rae Meadows

The railroad originally was as completely dissociated from steam propulsion as was the ship. ~ John Moody

Soetsu Yanagi, in the "Unknown Craftsman", writes, "Man is most free when his tools are proportionate to his needs." For example, for optimal productivity, a carpenter needs woodworking tools and an environment conducive to his work, not a steam shovel or army tank. ~ Jeff Davidson

The rockets set the bony meadows afire, turned rock to lava, turned wood to charcoal, transmuted water to steam, made sand and silica into green glass which lay like shattered mirrors reflecting the invasion, all about. The rockets came like drums, beating in the night. The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke. ~ Ray Bradbury

The two great agents of the physical world have become subject to the will of man and have been made subservient to his wants and enjoyments; I allude to steam and electricity, under whatever name the latter may be called. ~ John C. Calhoun

If you are a monster, stand up.
If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,
If you've built a steam-powered wishing machine
If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,
If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams
Come stand by me.

If you have been broken, stand up.
If you have been broken, abandoned, alone
If you have been starving, a creature of bone
If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne
If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,
Come stand by me.

If you are a savage, stand up.
If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,
If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,
If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,
If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,
Come stand by me.

If you are a devil, stand up.
If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,
If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,
If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,
For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,
We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns
And here in the dark is where new worlds are born.
Come stand by me. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

Do you think she's going to hang out your dirty laundry for all to see?"
"How can you say she has sense after what she pulled today? Bah! You don't know what you're talking about."
"What Willow did today was nothing more than an act of rebellion, a way to let off steam and let you know, in the only way she knew how, that your treatment of her is entirely unacceptable."
"Woman, what you need is a man, then maybe you wouldn't be putting your nose in everybody's business."
"Why,Mr. Vaughn, are you applying for the job?" Miriam asked, with an ill-humored smile.
"Hell,no!"
"Then I suggest you leave my personal life out of this. My life is in perfect order, which is more than can be said for yours!"
Owen grunted and took a pull on his pipe.
Well aware of his bold perusal, Miriam attacked her darning as if it were infinitely more engaging than any conversation with the man across the room from her.
Owen wasn't a handsome man by any standards with his bearlike build and ruddy complexion. And heaven knew he wasn't very likeable either. Thus, Miriam was at a complete loss to explain her powerful attraction to him. Good heavens, she thought, I haven't felt so giddy since that time on my eighteenth birthday when Hiriam pulled me behind Aunt Harriet's coachhouse and we... The landlady's face reddened. ~ Charlotte McPherren

It was time for the mirror pep talk.
"Okay, Maggie," I said to myself after my shower, wiping the steam off the medicine cabinet.
"You could eat these kids for breakfast. You won't, though, because that would be cannibalistic and
wrong. ~ Robin Benway

I could set from memory a replica of the perfect Still Life she laid out on the table each morning: the carefully folded Advertiser, the two canary yellow hemispheres of grapefruit in their bowls, separated by a more richly yellowed cube of butter; the sky blue milk-jug and matching sugar bowl filled to the brim with their differently textured whitenesses; the pot of tea snug in its knitted navy blue cosy, the steam that rose invisibly from its spout suddenly rendered visible, swirling, where it entered the slanting morning light. ~ Peter Goldsworthy

Life may be defined to be the power of self-augmentation or assimilation, not of self-nurture; for then a steam-engine over a coal-pit might be made to live. ~ Augustus William Hare

A fun thing to do to let off steam after layoffs began was to go into someone's office and send an email from their computer addressed to the entire agency. It might say something simple like "My name is Shaw-NEE! You are captured, Ha! I poopie I poopie I poopie." People came in in the morning and their reaction was so varied.
Jim Jackers read it and immediately sent out an email that we read, "Obviously someone come into my office last night and compossed an email in my name and sent it out to everyone. I apologise for any inconvenience or offence, although it wasn't my fault, and I would appreciate from whoever did this a public apology. I have read that email five times now and I still don't understand it. ~ Joshua Ferris

When steam first began to pump and wheels go round at so many revolutions per minute, what are called business habits were intended to make the life of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movement rival the train in punctuality. ~ George William Russell

How's it going today, Riot?" I said. "I'm Gideon."

Nice. Two sentences and I'd already managed to embarrass myself. In front of Daryn and a horse. I hadn't even realized the last part was possible. I continued speaking as I stepped closer. "I'm sure we have a lot in common. You're clearly a stallion in top physical condition. Extremely dangerous. Badass. Impressive looking."

"Wow," Daryn said behind me.

That made me smile, which I needed. I was nervous as all get-out. The muscles in Riot's legs were twitching. His breath lifted in puffs of steam. He had gold eyes - and they hadn't unlocked from mine. He looked like he wanted to eat my head.

"Keep going," Daryn said. "And maybe try to be positive and nice? I think he can sense what you're saying."

Positive, check. Nice, check. Wait - nice?

Shit. Okay. ~ Veronica Rossi

A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Today, nothing is unusual about a scientific discovery's being followed soon after by a technical application: The discovery of electrons led to electronics; fission led to nuclear energy. But before the 1880's, science played almost no role in the advances of technology. For example, James Watt developed the first efficient steam engine long before science established the equivalence between mechanical heat and energy. ~ Edward Teller

I want to be a hybrid fighter. From Pacquiao I was able to learn that a big heart is also essential when in the ring. Get his stamina, never lose steam from the beginning of the fight until the very last round. From Mayweather, yes, you are correct that I am learning to be precise, patient and the change of range. It makes me an unpredictable fighter. Opponents will be confused as to what element I'll use when fighting. ~ Tomoki Kameda

I got in a fight with my girlfriend," I said. "I was just driving around, blowing off steam, you know?"
Well, you should be more careful where you drive," the officer said. "You're making people nervous. You don't fit the profile of the neighborhood."
I wanted to tell him that I didn't fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get me into trouble. ~ Sherman Alexie

Those who admire modern civilization usually identify it with the steam engine and the electric telegraph. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The best ideas aren't hidden in shadowy recesses. They're right in front of us, hidden in plain sight. Innovation seldom depends on discovering obscure or subtle elements but in seeing the obvious with fresh eyes. This is easier said than done because nothing is as hard to see as what's right before our eyes. We overlook what we take for granted. Billions of tea drinkers observed the force of steam escaping from water boiling in a kettle before James Watt realized that this vapor could be converted into energy. ~ Richard Farson

I put steam on the table by being an actor. That is how I live. The longer I live, the more expensive it becomes. So I do my work. And I can't be immensely picky. How many beautiful scripts come in one's lifetime? I have had more than anybody, practically. ~ Peter O'Toole

I know you are tired. I know you are hurting. I know that even among the crowds and or with your closest loved ones, you feel terribly alone in the world. I know that in the quietness, a thousand hell hounds are barking and snarling at your heels.
They tell you, "Everything is wrong with you. You are a failure. You will never live to see your dreams and visions come to pass. You know you should just throw in the towel. No one would even miss you if you were gone. Exit from this cruel insane assylum you call home. We will even tell you how to end 'it'."
But don't you dare entertain those hounds of hell, no, not even for one moment. See, you not only have the elixir of Life inside of your organs and your veins; you are the Elixir of Life of a Celestial domain. For every hell hound nipping at your ears, there are eight hundred angels rushing to you with every holy breath....you take. Every step you make fuels the fire of Love in your behalf.
See, nothing is wrong with you. Every thing is right with you. You are cut from iron. You have long exchanged your velveteen fabric and cotton stuffing for blazen guts and a heart of gold. You are the head and not the tail. You are the water in the desert, the ripple in the steam, the sword AND the stone and you, glorious being, are not alone!
We are one and we are many. We've known lack, but we are plenty. We are not on the cusp of a break through. We are the cusp and we are the break --- through. We are the old and we a ~ Mishi McCoy

They got up steam and proceeded calmly to the north - where there seemed to be no people, but only mountains, lakes, reedy snow-filled steppes, and winter gods who played with storms and stars. ~ Mark Helprin

We ignore the blackness of outer space and pay attention to the stars, especially if they seem to order themselves into constellations. "Common as the air" meant something worthless, but Hackworth knew that every breath of air that Fiona drew, lying in her little bed at night, just a silver flow in the moonlight, was used by her body to make skin and hair and bones. The air became Fiona, and deserving - no, demanding - of love. Ordering matter was the sole endeavor of Life, whether it was a jumble of self-replicating molecules in the primordial ocean, or a steam-powered English mill turning weeds into clothing, or Fiona lying in her bed turning air into Fiona. ~ Neal Stephenson

There are many points in the history of an invention which the inventor himself is apt to overlook as trifling, but in which posterity never fail to take a deep interest. The progress of the human mind is never traced with such a lively interest as through the steps by which it perfects a great invention; and there is certainly no invention respecting which this minute information will be more eagerly sought after, than in the case of the steam-engine. ~ David Brewster

I had entered the Green [of Glasgow] by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street - had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, when the idea came into my mind that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I must get rid of the condensed steam and injection water if I used a jet, as in Newcomen's engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First, the water might be run off by a descending pipe, if an outlet could be got at the depth of 35 or 36 feet, and any air might be extracted by a small pump. The second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air. ... I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind.

{In Robert Hart's words, a recollection of the description of Watt's moment of inspiration, in May 1765, for improving Thomas Newcomen's steam engine.} ~ James Watt

In the sunlight, snow melts, crystals evaporate into a steam, into nothing. In the firelight, vapors dance and vanish. In the core of a volcano, fragile things burst and disappear. The girl, in the gunfire, in the heat, in the concussion, folded like a soft scarf, melted like a crystal figurine. What was left of her, ice, snowflake, smoke, blew away in the wind. The tiller seat was empty. ~ Ray Bradbury

Now is the time when we reenter the womb of the world, dreaming the dreams of snow and silence. Waking to the shock of frozen lakes under waning moonlight and the cold sun burning low and blue in the branches of the ice-cased trees, returning from our brief and necessary labors to food and story, to the warmth of firelight in the dark. Around a fire, in the dark, all truths can be told, and heard, in safety. I pulled on my woolen stockings, thick petticoats, my warmest shawl, and went down to poke up the kitchen fire. I stood watching wisps of steam rise from the fragrant cauldron, and felt myself turn inward. The world could go away, and we would heal. ~ Diana Gabaldon