Stirring The Pot Quotes

Someone is out there," I said. "Someone who has been manipulating the events. Playing puppet master, stirring the pot, stacking the deck - "
"Mixing metaphors?" Thomas suggested. ~ Jim Butcher

There's that old saying about 'stirring the pot.' And I think that more times than not, we'd be wise just to make soup. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

After a week in front of the screen, the opportunity to work with my hands - with all my senses, in fact - is always a welcome change of pace, whether in the kitchen or in the garden. There's something about such work that seems to alter the experience of time, helps me to reoccupy the present tense. I don't want you to get the idea it's made a Buddhist of me, but in the kitchen, maybe a little bit. When stirring the pot, just stir the pot. ~ Michael Pollan

Acting manifested as the primary focus over the years but now I am stirring the pot once again with my voice. ~ Janine Turner

Just keep stirring the pot, you never know what will come up. ~ Lee Atwater

Obama was quite serious when he said he was going to change the world. And now he has a national crisis, a personal mandate, a pliant Congress, a desperate public
and, at his disposal, the greatest pot of money in galactic history. ~ Charles Krauthammer

Drawing attention to Gretchen's weight was the sort of behavior my mother referred to as 'stirring the turd,' and I did it a lot that summer. ~ David Sedaris

Americans don't have deep gastronomic roots. They wanted to get away from the cultures of Europe or wherever they came from. We stirred up that melting pot pretty quickly. ~ Alice Waters

Here, in this waiting room, one could see a cross section of them - the hoppers, the creepers, the crawlers, the wrigglers, and rollers that came from the many planets, from so many stars. Earth was the galactic melting pot, he thought, a place where beings from the thousand stars met and mingled to share their thoughts and cultures. ~ Clifford D. Simak

From beyond the grave,
Hannah says that although living in the world of plurality and natality is no picnic, if we want to avoid Auschwitz or the Gulag or Stonewall or Pol Pot or Attica or ISIS, we as a species have no choice but to embrace it and endure it.

In other words, there is no single answer, no single bullet of understanding to guide us, just a glorious neverending mess. The neverending mess of true human freedom. ~ Ken Krimstein

{...} I was okay with things the way they were. No, not okay: I longed and suffered and pined with the rest of humanity. Sometimes I was happy enough with the book I was reading or the book I was writing, and the life I was stuck inside felt like a house on a rainy day. But most of the time I was just plain dying to get out. All I needed - all I have ever needed - was someone to challenge me, to serve as a goad, an instigator, a stirrer of the pot. I hated trouble, but I loved troublemakers. I hated chance and uncertainty, but I was drawn to those who showed up on your doorstep with their own pair of dice. ~ Michael Chabon

THIS TORTURE
Why should we tell you our love stories
when you spill them together like blood in the dirt?
Love is a pearl lost on the ocean floor,
or a fire we can't see,
but how does saying that
push us through the top of the head into
the light above the head?
Love is not
an iron pot, so this boiling energy
won't help.
Soul, heart, self.
Beyond and within those
is one saying,
How long before I'm free of this torture! ~ Rumi

My fingers darted, then danced, then flew. I played hard as a hailstorm, like a hammer beating brass. I played soft as sun on autumn wheat, gentle as a single stirring leaf. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

the pot to get the answers the other animals wanted. But as time went by Anansi got fed up with all the animals visiting. "They always knock when I'm about to sit down and enjoy my tea, or when I'm enjoying lying in the shade of my favourite tree," he would moan. "Why can't they just leave me alone?" "It must be hard," said Aso, not really listening. But he was right, the animals were always coming to see him. Take for example when one of Rabbit's children hopped up to see Anansi. "Anansi, please look in the pot for me. My brothers and sisters tease me because I'm scared ~ Lynne Garner

I just never saw my mother in any other room but the kitchen. There were always pots going. ~ Alan King

Sure, there are good things, lots, sure, blow jobs, chocolate mousse, winning streaks, the warm fire in your enemy's house, good book, hunk of cheese, flagon of ale, office raise, championship ring, the misfortunes of others, sure, good things, beyond count, queens, kings, old clocks, comfy clothes, lots, innumerable items in stock, baseball cards and bingo buttons, pot-au-feu, listen, we could go on and on like a long speech, sure it's a great world, sights to see, canyons full of canyon, corn on the cob, the eroded great pyramids, contaminated towns, eroded hillsides, deleafed trees, those whitened limbs stark and noble in the evening light, geeeez, what gobs of good things, no shit, service elevators, what would we do without, and all the inventions of man, Krazy Glue and food fights, girls wrestling amid mounds of Jell-O, drafts of dark beer, no end of blue sea, formerly full of fish, eroded hopes, eruptions of joy, because we're winning, have won, won, won what? the . . . the Title. ~ William H. Gass

You can never judge a paint hue by the liquid color in the paint pot. You must apply it to a wall, wait for the paint to dry, then decide. ~ Dorothy Draper

I was smart enough to use pot without getting caught, and now I'm on the Supreme Court. If you were stupid enough to get caught, that's your problem. Your appeal is denied. This 40 year sentence just might teach you a lesson. ~ Clarence Thomas

There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So (my parents) got together (sic) and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama ~ Barack Obama

I have had so many Dwellings, Nat, that I know these Streets as well as a strowling Beggar: I was born in this Nest of Death and Contagion and now, as they say, I have learned to feather it. When first I was with Sir Chris. I found lodgings in Phenix Street off Hogg Lane, close by St Giles and Tottenham Fields, and then in later times I was lodged at the corner of Queen Street and Thames Street, next to the Blew Posts in Cheapside. (It is still there, said Nat stirring up from his Seat, I have passed it!) In the time before the Fire, Nat, most of the buildings in London were made of timber and plaister, and stones were so cheap that a man might have a cart-load of them for six-pence or seven-pence; but now, like the Aegyptians, we are all for Stone. (And Nat broke in, I am for Stone!) The common sort of People gawp at the prodigious Rate of Building and exclaim to each other London is now another City or that House was not there Yesterday or the Situacion of the Streets is quite Changd (I contemn them when they say such things! Nat adds). But this Capital City of the World of Affliction is still the Capitol of Darknesse, or the Dungeon of Man's Desires: still in the Centre are no proper Streets nor Houses but a Wilderness of dirty rotten Sheds, allways tumbling or takeing Fire, with winding crooked passages, lakes of Mire and rills of stinking Mud, as befits the smokey grove of Moloch. (I have heard of that Gentleman, says Nat all a quiver). It is true that in what we call th ~ Peter Ackroyd

I think the problem for the future generations is a lot of people ain't takin' the time to look for them and give them their voice, so therefore for their voice to be heard, they gotta bang more pots on the ceiling, so to speak; they gotta do crazy things just to get recognized. I just feel that whenever you don't give a generation some kind of voice, then expect side effects. ~ Chuck D

In March several of the Mandrakes threw a loud and raucous party in greenhouse three. This made Professor Sprout very happy.
"The moment they start trying to move into each other's pots, we'll know they're fully mature," she told Harry. ~ J.K. Rowling

A sharp breeze cut through the fog, stirring the veil, slicing through wool and cutting to the bone. ~ Sabrina Flynn

You're no different than the rest of us, Victor. We all see ourselves as this dissatisfied thing, this ego, looking outside ourselves for just that one other thing that will make us complete. That job, that lover, that pot of money. Even enlightenment, as if that too is a thing we can grab hold of to complete what needs completing. There is always something, we believe, that will make us whole. But if you take a finite thing, like body and mind, and look for something outside it to make it complete, something like money or love or faith, what you are seeking is also just a finite thing. So you have a finite thing reaching for the infinite by grabbing for some other finite thing and you end up with nothing more than a deeper sense of dissatisfaction. ~ William Lashner

Sometimes love finds you when it's ready. And when you're ready too. How that happens is anybody's guess. Love is the great mystery stew, its secrets well kept, its ingredients known to providence alone. While both people are being prepared, marinated, skewered,cooked to readiness in the fires of life, the cosmic alchemist is turning the pot, reverently preparing the base for the lovers who will meld into it. Only God knows when the stew is ready to be served. Divine timing, Divine dining… ~ Jeff Brown

After the shot he collapsed on the bed and lay there inert, but something was stirring in his spine from neck to the tail - and now pieces tore loose in the eggs and then a red, glistening head emerges in reeking yellow slime - and then the whole centipede crawling out quick. ~ William S. Burroughs

I feel like I need to speak out, because if no one speaks out, if no one says, this is me, this is what I believe in, and this is why I'm different, and this is why that's okay, then what's the point? What's the point of living in this beautiful, great melting pot where everyone can dare be anything they want to be? ~ Sandhya Menon

Ahead of them, the tunnel was lit by a narrow hole in the ceiling that led to the wasteland above. Fireheart could see many cats huddled together in the gray light - warriors and elders, queens and kits, all pitifully thin. A cold breeze blew relentlessly through the hole in the roof, stirring the thin fur on the skinny bodies. Fireheart shuddered, for the breeze carried to him the stench of sickness and crowfood. ~ Erin Hunter

Then came the matter of food. For ten hours he picked grains of rice off the floor and collected pasta, sugar, and individual tea leaves. He would not eat anything that had been tainted with blood, and was left with less than a third of his rations. Some things - powdered cocoa, for example - were uncollectible, or had risen on the wind. He had kerosene enough for one pot of boiling water and one hour of lamplight each day. Some of his blankets had bullet holes. ~ Mark Helprin

Hey, ya'll should come home with us. Verdie has a pot roast in the oven that will melt in your mouth," Finn said.
He was as tall as Sawyer and had the bluest eyes Jill had ever seen on a man. Callie nodded at his side as she corralled four kids, and Verdie poked her head out around Finn's shoulder to say, "Yes, we'd love to have you. Got plenty of food and plenty of these wild urchins to entertain you. If that don't keep you laughing, then there's a parrot that never shuts up and a bunch of dogs."
"And a cat," a little girl said shyly. ~ Carolyn Brown

Among the nations of Earth in all its history, ours is one of the precious few that has not brought forth its Hitler, its Stalin, its Pol Pot, its Mao Tse-tung, its Vlad the Impaler, the one who is never satisfied to have every knee bend to him but wants also to be the architect of a new world by destroying the existing one. ~ Dean Koontz

All was fullness and all was active, there was no weakness in time, all, even the least perceptible stirring, was made of existence. And all these existents which bustled about this tree came from nowhere and were going nowhere. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the hottest bitch of all? ~ Sara Humphreys

It is no accident that Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot and other butchers of note took special pains early in their despotic careers to suppress religion and undermine the traditional family. Theophobes would find such a characterization truly horrifying, but it's true. This explains why theophobia - while popular in faculty lounges, journalism seminars and Hollywood bacchanals - has not and probably never will attract a public following of any appreciable influence or size. ~ Tony Snow

The notion that the intense and unprecedented mixture of ethnic and religious groups in American life was soon to blend into a homogeneous end product has outlived its usefulness, and also its credibility. . . .The point about the melting pot. . . is that it did not happen. ~ David L. Sills

She couldn't believe she had told him. Now she would forever be a broken pot in his eyes. And yet, speaking those words last night had been like digging shrapnel out of her flesh. She was sore, but the piercing weight of the deeply lodged shards was gone. The relief was indescribable. ~ Sonali Dev

The U.S. victory in Gulf War was a stirring victory for the forces of aggression. ~ Dan Quayle

Harry paused with his fork held in midair, mesmerized by the sight of her slim fingers twirling the honey stick, meticulously filling each hole with thick umber liquid. Realizing that he was staring, Harry took a bite of his breakfast. Poppy replaced the honey stick in a small silver pot. Discovering a stray drop of sweetness on the tip of her thumb, she lifted it to her lips and sucked it clean.
Harry choked a little, reached for his tea, and took a swallow. The beverage scalded his tongue, causing him to flinch and curse.
Poppy gave him an odd look. "Is there anything the matter?"
Nothing. Except that watching his wife eating breakfast was the most erotic act he had ever seen. "Nothing at all," Harry said scratchily. "Tea's hot."
When he dared to look at Poppy again, she was consuming a fresh strawberry, holding it by the green stem. Her lips rounded in a luscious pucker as she bit neatly into the ripe flesh of the fruit. Christ. He moved uncomfortably in his chair, while all the unsatisfied desire of the previous night reawakened with a vengeance. Poppy ate two more strawberries, nibbling slowly, while Harry tried to ignore her. Heat collected beneath his clothing, and he used a napkin to blot his forehead.
Poppy lifted a bite of honey-soaked crumpet to her mouth, and gave him a perplexed glance. "Are you feeling well?"
"It's too warm in here," Harry said irritably, while lurid thoughts went through his mind. Thoughts involving honey, and soft ~ Lisa Kleypas

Eight years ago, I was a waiter, and I didn't have a pot to piss in. And now ... ? It's like I said to my wife: I love the fact that, if I was in a restaurant and Steven Spielberg walked in, I could go up to him and say, 'Hey, mate, how are you?' I think that's pretty amazing, actually. ~ Nick Frost

There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana. $7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven't even included the harm to young people. It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes. ~ Milton Friedman

See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn't change, only the morality ... That's why you get to go to jail and I don't. ~ Newt Gingrich

Tiny differences in input could quickly become overwhelming differences in output ... In weather, for example, this translates into what is only half-jokingly known as the Butter- fly Effect - the notion that a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York. ~ James Gleick

As things now stand, everything is up for grabs. Nevertheless: Napalming babies is bad. Starving the poor is wicked. Buying and selling each other is depraved. Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot - and General Custer too - have earned salvation. Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned. There is in the world such a thing as evil. [All together now:] Sez who? God help us.6 ~ David Baggett

And is there any reason, we ask as we shut the book, why the perspective that a plain earthenware pot exacts should not satisfy us as completely, once we grasp it, as man himself in all his sublimity standing against a background of broken mountains and tumbling oceans with stars flaming in the sky? ~ Virginia Woolf

Something deep in my guts, below my heart, has made a shift to the left and settled in a more comfortable place. It's not the Shift, but it's a shift. I picture Nia with her gorgeous face and little body and black hair and pouty lips and Aaron's hands all over her but also with her pot smoking and the pimples on her forehead and making fun of people all the time and the way she's always so proud of how she's dressed. And I picture her fading. ~ Ned Vizzini

You can tell a lot about a country by its prisons. In hippy-dippy Socialist Sweden, rapists and murders (all three of them) while away their days making arts and crafts in what are essentially taxpayer-funded mental health clinics. The Swedes' theory seems to be that a) anyone who commits such a crime must be crazy and b) with enough art therapy, the individual in question will soon become just another law-abiding, nude-sunbathing pot-smoker. In America, we think people in prison are either the victims of some terrible government conspiracy, the victims of "society" - whatever that means - or heinous evildoers. And if they are heinous enough, we fry them with electricity, unless of course they find Jesus first. The Swedes, in a nutshell, are tolerant and forgiving, verging on the naïve; Americans are religious and vengeful, suspicious of their government, and suckers for tear-jerking tales of redemption. ~ Maureen Klovers

Of course he burst through the door. It cracked against the massive slabs that formed the stone walls, sending splinters flying, and I didn't have to try very hard for the startled jump as Lord Pecus strode into the room.
I gave a maidenly shriek, and in a moment of truly inspired acting, snatched my dressing gown from the bed to my chest and assumed pose #35, Maidenly Horror. Hands clasped below the breasts and clutching my dressing gown as if to protect girlish modesty, eyes wide- maybe finishing school had been useful for something after all. I thought I might have gone too far, but Lord Pecus, who at my shriek had stopped two strides into the room with a look of horror on his mask, hastily turned his face to the wall. He tried to utter a disjointed apology but I threw one of the pot-pourri bowls at him, and it smashed satisfyingly on the wall, cutting off the attempt. ~ W.R. Gingell

And under the new guidelines issued by the Obama Administration, Federal agents will not pursue pot-smoking patients in states that allow medical marijuana. This new policy is called 'Don't Ask, Don't
What Was I Talking About?' ~ Jay Leno

When I first started following writers on social media, I imagined a deluge of profound quotes, writing tips and insights into the plight of wordsmiths. There was some of that. Mostly though, my timeline was taken up with their obsession with coffee: 'I want coffee/I'm having coffee/I've had coffee.' Then came photos of their favourite coffee mug/pot/shop/barista. So, if you've enjoyed a recently-published book, give credit to writers: the vampiric aficionados of the coffee cherry. ~ Stewart Stafford

The busy man has few idle visitors; to the boiling pot the flies come not. ~ Benjamin Franklin

I walked up to Griz and poked him in the chest. Let me make this perfectly clear to you. Though some might seek to make it appear otherwise, I am not a bride to be bartered away to another kingdom, not a prize of war, not a mouthpiece for your Komizar. I am not a chip in a card game to be mindlessly tossed into the center of the pot, nor one to be kept in the tight fist of a greedy opponent. I am a player seated at the table alongside everyone else, and from this day forward, I will play my own hand as I see fit. Do you understand me? Because the consequences could be ugly if someone thought otherwise. ~ Mary E. Pearson