Strapped Quotes

Mr. Sambridge possessed a remarkably good mouthful of natural teeth for someone his age, whether ritually maintained or expensively corrected I could not tell.

As someone who has spent hours of agony strapped down in Dr. Frankenstein's chamber of dental horrors in Farrington Street, I could only respect - and hate - anyone who still possessed such a spotless set of choppers. ~ Alan Bradley

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

See that guy over there?" I nod toward a man in jean shorts and a Budweiser T-shirt. "Am I that obvious?"
St. Clair squints at him. "Obviously what? Balding? Overweight? Tasteless?"
"American."
He sighs melodramtically. "Honestly, Anna. You must get over this."
"I just don't want to offend anyone. I hear they offend easily."
"You're not offending anyone except me right now."
"What about her?" I point to a middle-aged woman in khaki shorts and a knit top with stars and stripes on it.She has a camera strapped to her belt and is arguing with a man in a bucket hat. Her husband,I suppose.
"Completely offensive."
"I mean,am I as obvious as her?"
"Considering she's wearing the American flag, I'd venture a no on that one." He bites his thumbnail. "Listen.I think I have a solution to your problem, but you'll have to wait for it. Just promise you'll stop asking me to compare you to fifty-year-old women,and I'll take care of everything."
"How? With what? A French passport?"
He snorts. "I didn't say I'd make you French." I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off. "Deal?"
"Deal," I say uncomfortably. I don't care for surprises. "But it better be good."
"Oh,it's good." And St. Clair looks so smug that I'm about to call him on it, when I realize I can't see our school anymore.
I don't believe it.He's completely distracted me. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Sapphique strapped the wings to his arms and flew, over oceans and plains, over glass cities and mountains of gold. Animals fled; people pointed up. He flew so far, he saw the sky above him and the sky said, "Turn back, my son, for you have climbed too high." Sapphique laughed, as he rarely did. "Not this time. This time I beat on you until you open."
But Incarceron was angered, and struck him down. ~ Catherine Fisher

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax. ~ Eric Hoffer

Where's your boyfriend, District 12? Still hanging on?" She asks.
Well, as long as we're talking I'm alive. "He's out there now. Hunting Cato," I snarl at her. Then I scream at the top of my lungs. "Peeta!"
Clove jams her fist into my windpipe, very effectively cutting off my voice. But her head's whipping from side to side, and I know for a moment she's at least considering I'm telling the truth. Since no Peeta appears to save me, she turns back to me.
"Liar," she says with a grin. "He's nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him. You've probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart going. What's in the pretty little backpack? That medicine for Lover Boy? Too bad he'll never get it. ~ Suzanne Collins

He was the first to reach the aircraft, and he went for the door that by some miracle was facing outward and not into the concrete wall. Wrenching the thing open, and getting out his flashlight, he didn't know what to expect inside - smoke? Fumes? Blood and body parts?
Zsadist was sitting rigid in a backward-facing seat, his big body strapped in, both hands locked on the armrests. The Brother was staring straight ahead and not blinking.
"Have we stopped moving?" he said hoarsely ~ J.R. Ward

Strapped by tight credit and plummeting sales, businesses have overhauled the way they manage supply chains, inventory, production practices and staffing. ~ Janet Yellen

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

Shy, all those things you listed don't make a person. They don't. I mean it. You're beautiful, both inside and outside, but please don't look at me to validate that. You have to know it for yourself. -Taylor Holden, Strapped. ~ Nina G. Jones

He [Old Mr. Turveydrop] was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. ~ Charles Dickens

The two men
Fray and Malkin
were standing near each other. They were not unarmed. They were quite seriously not unarmed. Both men were carrying
or at least aiming
what could only be categorised as small artillery pieces: two bulky gas-powered spinguns, so heavy that they had to be strapped to their bodies via thick leather girdles. Malkin was aiming at the angels, more or less. ~ Alastair Reynolds

Someone pried open his eyelid and rudely flashed a light in his eye that made his headache pound even harder. Groaning, he flinched, moving his head away. Gently, the doctor turned his head back and held it in place while he continued to test the dilation of his eye. Good thing Caillen's arms were strapped down or the man would be bleeding over the intrusion and that light would be shining out of an orifice the gods had never meant to hold it. "He's ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

For the record, there were no framed pictures of me around our house, and the only class portrait Dad had ever ordered was the one from Sparta Elementary in which I'd sat, knees glued together, in front of a background that looked like Yosemite, sporting pink overalls and a lazy eye. "This is classic," Dad said. "That they shamelessly send me an order form so I can pay $69.95 for prints large and small of a photo in which my daughter looks as if she just suffered a great blow to her head - it just shows you, we are simply strapped to a motorized assembly line moving through this country. We're supposed to pay out, shut up or get tossed in the rejects bin. ~ Marisha Pessl

The killjoys initiated automobile crash standards so rigorous that we can't buy a car that hasn't been dropped from the top of a phone pole with our whole family strapped inside. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

For eight years I was an inmate in a state asylum for the insane. During those years I passed through such unbearable terror that I deteriorated into a wild, frightened creature intent only on survival. And I survived. I was raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats and poisoned by tainted food. I was chained in padded cells, strapped into strait-jackets and half-drowned in ice baths. And I survived. The asylum itself was a steel trap, and I was not released from its jaws alive and victorious. I crawled out mutilated, whimpering and terribly alone. But I did survive. ~ Frances Farmer

like licorice strips. Nate links his fingers with mine. His bad arm is still strapped up. The forecast from the doctors hasn't improved, but Nate's demeanor has. He's come to a certain peace with the whole thing. The windshield's cold behind my back, the sky endless ahead. "Lucy," he says, looking down at his arm, "thanks, and I mean it. I can't get through this without you. I know that now." I remember that day, the fight that stripped us both bare, ~ Teagan Kade

Rose insisted on being taken to shore to fulfill her duty to her cause, but the lifeboat carrying her capsized in rough surf. She might have survived had she not been carrying $2,000 in gold for the Confederacy strapped beneath her clothing. The weight of the gold pulled her under and she drowned on October 1, 1864 ~ Jack Steinberg

The air grew colder and thinner as they rode through the mountain passes. The sun was high and bright, but Martise wrapped her shawl tightly around her and pressed against Silhara's back. Gnat kept a steady pace, breathing harder in the thin air. Unlike him, the mountain ponies suffered no effects from the rising elevation and clipped ahead at a swift pace. Patches of snow spilled from embankments onto the rutted paths. A brisk wind moaned a soft dirge as it whipped through the towering evergreens cloaking the mountainside.
Silhara called a sudden halt. Martise peered around his arm, expecting to see some obstacle in their path. The way was clear, with only the Kurmans watching them curiously.
"What's wrong?"
"You're quaking hard enough to make my teeth rattle." He moved his leg back and untied one of the packs strapped to the saddle. "Get down."
She slid off Gnat's back. Silhara followed and pulled one of their blankets from the packet. "Here. Wrap this around you." She had only pulled the blanket over her shoulders when he picked her up and tossed her onto Gnat's back once more, this time in the front of the flat saddle. She clutched the horse's mane with one hand and held on to her blanket with the other. Silhara vaulted up behind her, scooted her back against him and took up the reins.
"Better," he said and whistled to the waiting Kurmans he was ready. Martise couldn't agree more. The blanket's warmth and Silhara's body heat so ~ Grace Draven

Hoping to settle the wheelchair matter once and for all, Graham dragged his chief of construction, his chief of architecture, and a film crew out to Dulles Airport, whose escalators were approximately the same width as those planned for Metro. There he produced a variety of braces and crutches. As the cameras rolled, Graham rode up and down the escalators using one aid after another, climaxing by riding both directions in a wheelchair, facing up each time. Graham clearly believed he had proved beyond doubt that 'it is entirely possible, easily and safely, for wheelchair travelers to use escalators.' His aides watched in disbelief; a fit and fearless major general in his fifties hardly represented the disabled population, whatever braces he strapped to his legs. All he had proved, concluded the WMATA architect Sprague Thresher, was that 'if everybody who had to use a wheelchair was Jack Graham, we wouldn't need elevators. ~ Zachary M. Schrag

Had the girl had any common sense, she would have dropped the line at once. But she had no sense. She made no sense. She was a pale English rose of a governess, adrift in a watery wilderness, on her way to a grueling post on a godforsaken island, when any fool could have told her-a woman so lovely need never work for her keep.
Had the men around her any sense, they would have cut the rope immediately. But they were idiots, bloody shite-for-brains idiots, too entranced by the pretty girl in peril to reach for their knives.
Had Gray his own knife, he would have drawn it. But he wasn't wearing his knife, because he wasn't the captain on this ship, was he? Nor an officer, nor even part of the crew. He was just a stupid, overdressed passenger who hadn't strapped on a goddamned knife that morning because it might ruin the lines of his goddamned brand-new coat. ~ Tessa Dare

The door opens, and I turn my head, my heart thudding at the sight of Griffin. Tall, broad, muscular but sleek, he stalks into the room like a predator, his gait balanced and sure, his glittering, gray eyes focused entirely on me. Inky hair, a hawkish nose, that stubborn jaw, and thick, black stubble make him look hard and intimidating. With his sword strapped on and his dark brows lowered, he's a warlord on the prowl.
I shiver. I couldn't want him more. ~ Amanda Bouchet

As I saw it,
all my mother's life, my father
held her down, like
lead strapped to her ankles.
She was
buoyant by nature;
she wanted to travel,
go to the theater, go to museums.
What he wanted
was to lie on the couch
with the Times
over his face,
so that death, when it came,
wouldn't seem a significant change. ~ Louise Gluck

This life is like a roller-coaster; once you are strapped-in and the ride has started, you aren't getting off. ~ Bryant McGill

Taking her completely by surprise, he leaned down and strapped her in, his face only inches from hers as he took his time. He smelled fresh, crisp and oh so masculine. All she wanted to do was bury her face against his neck and breathe him in. Okay, she wanted to do more than that, but he smelled… ~ Katie Reus

They'd strapped themselves into this explosive hunk of scrap and aimed for the sky. How was this a good idea? How had anyone ever thought this was a good idea? ~ Becky Chambers

Eric Steele utilized the Mark XI's voice command function by saying, "Nav," and a map appeared in the upper-right quadrant
of the visor. The yellow blinking arrow told him that he needed to come left, so he lowered his shoulder and banked gently
until he was locked on the correct glide path.


This thing is legit.

Steele had grown up on James Bond and thought being a spy was all about the gadgets. But in the real world batteries failed
and an operator lived and died by making a plan and sticking to it. One of the main reasons Steele was still alive while so
many of his friends were dead was because he didn't leave anything to chance.


He carefully brought his left arm up to eye level and double-checked the Mark XI's readings with the GPS/altimeter combo strapped
to his forearm. Once he was sure that he knew exactly where he was, he snapped his arms tight and accelerated to 200 miles
per hour. ~ Sean Parnell

I palmed his face and mushed him away from me before I got too angry and started really wailing on him. "Grab Alex's guitar then and see if you can even remember how to hold it."We all watched in horror as Tucker drunkenly tried to strap Alex's precious guitar on,banging it into the speakers and amps, stumbling and struggling with it as he tried to stand up straight.
"You have got you be kidding me," Ethan growled when Tucker finally got the guitar strapped
to him. Backwards. Then his legs seemed to buckle under him and he dropped heavily to his knees on
the floor. Alex's eyes widened and his jaw flew open. "Get my guitar! Get it away from him! Get it!
Geeeeet Ittttttttt!" he yelled. ~ Christine Zolendz

A handsome prince fights a terrible, beautiful dragon and slays him then carries the head home strapped to his saddle. The lesson is obvious. When one is a monster, one does well to beware knights in shining armor. A good lesson for Eleanor."

Zach heard the meaning behind Søren's words. "Nora is not a monster. She's not perfect obviously. But she's a good person, and to call her a monster is ridiculous."

"You know her that well, do you?" Soren asked, turning to face him full-on. "Before tonight she scared you, didn't she? Her fearlessness, her brazeness, I'm sure it's terrifying at first. Foreign to those who lead proverbial life of quiet desperation as I imagine you do. She scared you with the sheer force of her life and being. But now you look around and think her courage is merely a byproduct of her damage. You imagine I abused her, changed her. And you would save her, as Wesley imagines he can? You would be her knight in shining armor? Yes, before you feared her and now you pity her. I assure you, Zachary, you were right the first time. ~ Tiffany Reisz

From the moment he stepped in the shell that afternoon, he felt at home. He liked the boys.He didn't know Gordy Adam and Don Hume well, but both made a point of welcoming him. His oldest most reliable shell house friend, Roger Morris, sitting up front in the bow, gave a wave and a shout, Hey Joe I see you finally found the right boat!" His buddies from Grand Coulee Chuck Day and Johnie White were sitting up front too. As he strapped in his shoes and began to lace up, Stub McMillin, his face alight said, This boat is going to fly now boys." Shorty Hunt slapped him on the back and whispered, I got your back Joe! ~ Daniel James Brown

Happy birthday. Your thirteenth is important. Maybe your first really public day. Your thirteenth is the chance for people to recognize that important things are happening to you.
Things have been happening to you for the past half year. You have seven hairs in your left armpit now. Twelve in your right. Hard dangerous spirals of brittle black hair. Crunchy, animal hair. There are now more of the hard curled hairs around your privates than you can count without losing track. Other things. Your voice is rich and scratchy and moves between octaves without any warning. Your face has begun to get shiny when you don't wash it. And two weeks of a deep and frightening ache this past spring left you with something dropped down from inside: your sack is now full and vulnerable, a commodity to be protected. Hefted and strapped in tight supporters that stripe your buttocks red. You have grown into a new fragility.

And dreams. For months there have been dreams like nothing before: moist and busy and distant, full of unyielding curves, frantic pistons, warmth and a great falling; and you have awakened through fluttering lids to a rush and a gush and a toe-curling scalp-snapping jolt of feeling from an inside deeper than you knew you had, spasms of a deep sweet hurt, the streetlights through your window blinds crackling into sharp stars against the black bedroom ceiling, and on you a dense white jam that lisps between legs, trickles and sticks, cools on you, hardens and cle ~ David Foster Wallace

I go to church strapped with a 45 glock. ~ Master P

Finally, I will never forget stopping near a lovely young girl still strapped to her seat, breathing slightly. Her blouse was white, her slacks were blue. At the end of the trousers were two snow-white ankle bones where her feet used to be. I had never seen the whiteness of bones that are freshly exposed like that. ~ Laurence Gonzales

For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire "intelligent" population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches. In ~ Douglas Adams

Make no mistake, the woman had a heart. She had a bigger one that people would think. There was a lot in it, stored up, high in miles of hidden shelving. Remember that she was the woman with the instrument strapped to her body in the long, moon-slit night. ~ Markus Zusak

That family was el Diablo on earth, with dark wings strapped to their bodies, French on their tongues, a sprinkling of gypsy blood. ~ Anna-Marie McLemore

In Sing Sing Prison, in a ghastly white room stands a chair. Its parts are heavy joinings of oak, riveted and screwed together; its strong legs fastened to the floor with teeth and claws of steel. It bites into the marrow of men with fangs of fire. For this is the faldstool of bloody human justice, the prayer-chair of man's vengeance upon man. Into it are strapped ... men who have killed other men. In it, for a high moral purpose, erring human lives are shocked across the barrier into night and the grave. - Edward H. Smith (1918) ~ Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

I want to be strapped to a table, while a family of chickens argues over who gets to eat my legs. ~ Jarod Kintz

Our joy is not strapped by the confines of our present situation; it is deeply rooted in the confidence we have in Jesus Christ. It cannot be moved. ~ Robin M. Bertram

Call me Ozzie, doll," he called back. He hunched over the keyboard like a starving man hunches over a plate of food. "And there's no need to conceal my weapons. I figure everyone should see what's in store for them should they attempt to fuck with me.""
Oh man." Dan groaned and rolled his eyes. "Next thing you know he'll be coming to work shirtless with bandoliers strapped across his chest and a red bandana tied around his head."
"Ah, so you have seen a movie or two." Ozzie swiveled in his chair, his eyes sparkling with devilish glee. "Rambo, huh? I can give you Rambo." He lowered his voice. "'They drew first blood. Not me…'"
"What a crock of bullsh - uh, crap." Dan scoffed.
"Are you sitting there dissing Stallone?" Ozzie demanded, making like he was about to stand in defense of the Italian Stallion.
"No. I'm sitting here dissing you, you stu - ~ Julie Ann Walker

The men rode into Beaver Run like two horsemen of the apocalypse, justice on a white horse and war on a red. The few citizens walking through the muddy streets hurried to get out of their path, while those milling on the plank walkways stared as the duo passed.
Danger.
Long and lean, both sat their saddles with the ease of men accustomed to mastering both the beasts beneath them and the world around them. Their dusters hung to the tops of their boots and were covered in trail dust. Their hats, pulled low, cast shadows over their faces. Rifles were mounted to their horses' saddles and each man had a gun strapped to his thigh. ~ Suzanne Ferrell

I recalled with some discomfort that the man driving the vehicle had invented the sport of volcano boarding, presumably as a way of solving, in one deft move, the problems of the insufficient riskiness of both snowboarding and hanging out on the slopes of active volcanoes. Although I was not sure that I wanted to live forever, I was sure that I didn't want to go down in a blaze of chintzy irony, plunging into a ravine strapped into the passenger seat of a thing called the Immortality Bus. ~ Mark O'Connell

I would say I'm more fascinated by Big Daddy V than I am necessarily a huge fan of Big Daddy V. He simply threw on the double-strapped unitard ... and now he's some sort of fearsome, fighting, wrecking machine. ~ James Roday

A typical 'Larry King Live' is a pastiche whose absurdism defies parody. Wearing his trademark suspenders and purple shirts, he looks as if he's strapped to the chair with vertical seat belts, unable to eject. ~ James Wolcott

He opened his mouth to protest, but she gave him her angry-black-woman death stare until he calmed down. She then strapped her grenade launcher to her back, slipped on her mask, pushed aside the metal latrine, and dropped into the sewer. ~ Thomas Greanias

William focused on her, opened his mouth, closed it. Seeing the weapon strapped to her back and peeking over her shoulder samurai-style, he frowned. "Nice sword," he said dryly.
"Thanks."
"It's one of my favorites."
"If you're nice, I'll give it back to you in a year or two."
"You're so good to me. ~ Gena Showalter

Cease ceasing movement so abruptly! Christ, woman, must you catapult forward after each cessation? Are you certain you've strapped the mirror securely? We should stop and check it. By Danu, wench, try nudging this beast gently, not kicking it with both heels! A silence, a slew of choked curses, then: Horses! What the bloody hell is wrong with horses? Have they all been slain in battle? ~ Karen Marie Moning

A strong and bitter book-sickness floods one's soul. How ignominious to be strapped to this ponderous mass of paper, print and dead man's sentiment. Would it not be better, finer, braver to leave the rubbish where it lies and walk out into the world a free untrammelled illiterate Superman? ~ Cornelia Funke

If you really want to torture me, sit me in a room strapped to a chair and put Mariah Carey's records on. ~ Cameron Diaz

Dad fastens his knife jacket before putting his black pea coat on. He's like a walking armoury. He has two guns on either side of his chest secured in his black shoulder holsters, an array of magazines on his belt and of course the knives. I don't need to check to know he has two more guns strapped to both his legs. With his dark coat on, dark jeans and boots, and his weapons hidden away, he looks imposing but harmless. Unsuspecting people would never think of him otherwise.
He cocks his head. "Too much?" he asks. ~ M. Rees

Whenever I got out of bed I had to wear a big metal brace that was strapped around me.
I felt like an invalid. I was an invalid. This was crazy.
I'm screwed.
You stupid, stupid idiot, Bear. You could have landed that canopy if you hadn't panicked, or you should have cut it away and pulled that reserve early.
As it was, I had done the worst of both worlds: I had neither gone for the reserve straight away nor had I managed to land the canopy with any degree of skill.
I felt I could have avoided this accident if I had been smarter, faster, clearer-headed. I had messed up, and I knew it.
I vowed that I would never fall short in those areas again.
I would learn from this, and go on to become the fastest, clearest-thinking dude on the planet.
But for now, the tears kept coming. ~ Bear Grylls

In a scheduled world, you are told you have half an hour to peruse an exhibit at the museum; in a programmed world, you are strapped into the ride at Disneyland and conveyed through the experience at a predetermined pace. However richly conceived, the ride's complexity is limited because its features are built-in, appearing and unfolding in sync with the motions of your cart. The skeleton dangles, the pirate waves, and the holographic ship emerges from the cloud of smoke. In the programmed life, the lights go on and off at a specified time, the coffee pot activates, the daylight-balanced bulb in the programmable clock radio fades up. Active participation is optional, for these events will go on without us and at their own pace. ~ Douglas Rushkoff

That Mitt Romney, he is a master campaigner. This week he was introducing his wife, and he said, 'She is the heavyweight champion of my life. Which may explain why on the ride home, he was strapped to the roof of the car. ~ Bill Maher

Matias frowned. Damn, he'd had a vision of this gorgeous woman naked? He hadn't thought he could despise his memory loss any more than he did, but the hits kept on coming. Wait. The blonde had said vision... as in the future? "We're fated to have sex?"
"No!" Quinn shook her head so quickly and vehemently that her teeth all but rattled.
"You sure? You can't seem to stay away from me." He looked down at their close proximity.
"I knew I should have left you to rot in the psych ward strapped to that bed."
Matias frowned. He was having a hard time keeping up with the conversation. "Kinky. Or is that another dream you had starring yours truly? ~ Jane Cousins

With stagnant wages and booming consumption, the cash-strapped American masses had a virtually unlimited demand for loans but an uncertain ability to repay them. ~ Michael Lewis

He was able to find the intensity and beauty that he wanted, in the plung itself. Physical forces in a complicated coalition of gravity, acceleration, and temperature were powerful and intense enough to satisfy him. It made sense. Nothing was as comforting as the enduring purity of elemental forces, and returning to them could not mean defeat. But he never thought that he would die in a bark suit, strapped to a shock pancake, next to an incompetent midget. ~ Mark Helprin

Straining to hear, I can make out something acoustic. Coming from...the backyard?

I glance down from my bedroom window and feel my jaw fall open. Matt Finch is standing below my window, guitar strapped across his chest. I pull my window up, and I expect the song from that old movie - the one about a guy with a trench coat and the big radio and his heart on his sleeve.

But it's not that. It's not anything I recognise, and I strain to make out the lyrics: Stop being ridiculous, stop being ridiculous, Reagan.

What an asshole.

The mesh screen and two floors between us don't seem like enough to protect him from my anger.

"Nice apology," I call down to him.
"I've apologised thirteen times," he yells back, "and so far you haven't called me back."

I open my mouth to say it doesn't matter, but he's already redirecting the song.

"Now I'm gonna stand here until you forgive me," he sings loudly, "or at least until you hear me out, la-la, oh-la-la. I drove seven hours overnight, and I won't leave until you come out here."

(...) "This is private property!" My throat feel coarse from how loudly I'm yelling. "And that doesn't even rhyme!"

The guitar chord continues as he sings, "Then call the cops, call the cops, call the cops..."

I storm downstairs, my feet pounding against the staircase. When I turn the corner, my dad looks almost amused from his seat in the recliner. Noticing ~ Emery Lord

I'm strapped for cash, and I'm also strapped to a chair in someone's basement. ~ Jarod Kintz

If ka is a train - and it is, a vast, hurtling mono, maybe sane, maybe not - then this nasty little lycanthrope is its most vulnerable hostage, not tied to the tracks like little Nell but strapped to the thing's very headlight. ~ Stephen King

Thank you," I managed to say.

Replying with a nod, he approached my horse. "Here, let me help you - "

I slipped down myself before he could lend a hand, keeping the fur hide in my possession. "I'm not suddenly incapable because I wear a dress, Thaddeus."

"I wasn't suggesting…." Wisely, he let the issue drop.

Lifting an arm, he offered it to me. That's when I noticed my sword in sheath belted to his waist.

"That's mine!" I declared, reaching for the hilt.

Thaddeus managed a quick side-step. He hardened his jaw at my look of incredulity. I would only wait momentarily for an explanation.

"I know the sword is yours, Catherine, everyone knows that. But you're too beautiful tonight to ruin that radiant look with an ugly, leather belt strapped about you."

I was starting to think the man was using compliments as a weapon to defend himself against me. It did work to temper my anger somewhat.

"I brought the sword as a cautionary act, just in case those nasty werewolves show up. Seeing how I'll be standing beside you all evening, the blade will be at your disposal if needed."

I accepted his reasoning and stood down.

"Besides," Thaddeus added, apparently feeling safe, "what's yours is mine now anyway."

I glared at the fool. "That works both ways, you know."

He rolled his eyes and shrugged. "If it must."

Again, he offered me his arm wh ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

You get this drama, babe, you got until the end of Tack's meeting to burn it out, but mark this, Lanie. After that meeting, I don't give a fuck if you're strapped into a rocket to go to the goddamned moon, I'm findin' you, we're sortin' this shit out and we're movin' on," he warned. "I just made a mental note to find a plastic surgeon who does emergency face alterations so you won't know who to look for," I shot back. "Jesus, I'm pissed as all fuck and still she's cute," he groused like he wasn't talking to me but actually complaining to the Son of God. "Jesus works on Sunday, Hop. You want a direct line, time to haul your biker ass to church," I shared. "You want me to let you go so you can burn this out, you better stop bein' cute, lady. You keep bein' cute, I'll kiss you in the goddamn forecourt and I won't give a fuck who sees." I snapped my mouth shut. "That's what I thought," he ~ Kristen Ashley

But I couldn't get the image out of my head of the beast strapped to the table, Father humming while the candle wax slowly dripped, and Montgomery assisting. I felt betrayed, as though the boy I'd idolized was nothing more than a fantasy. ~ Megan Shepherd

Always strap in. As supernatural beings we're pretty much going to survive any crash, especially you, but the police are more likely to pull you over if you're not strapped in."
"I'm certain they could pull you over for many other infractions," he murmured, doing as she instructed with the seatbelt. ~ Katie Reus

The click of the seat belt securing into the buckle is the only sound to break the awkward silence. I feel his warm breath on my neck as he reaches and I take a deep nervous inhale. His scent fills my nose, it is clean and warm, just like in the coffee shop. The smell of his skin is delicious. I try to stop these thoughts, but they are invading my brain in a way that has never happened to me before. Not even with ... Rick. I try push him back out of my mind at this moment because I feel a sense of guilt. Rick and I are frozen. That's the only way I can describe us. He is faithful, he is steady, he is nice, but he is not like this man in front of me: new, mysterious, and unpredictable. Rick and I are in a state of comfort, but like much of my life, I am becoming more and more discontent with comfort. ~ Nina G. Jones

You lived and died alone, especially in fighters. Fighters. Somehow, despite everything, that word had not become sterile. You slipped into the hollow cockpit and strapped and plugged yourself into the machine. The canopy ground shut and sealed you off. Your oxygen, your very breath, you carried into the chilled vacuum, in a steel bottle. ~ James Salter

A half-empty bottle of vodka sat on the bedside table, and his sketchbook was open on the king-size bed. Several sketches, only three of which looked finished, were scattered across the bedspread. Clearly he hadn't been sleeping either.

Swallowing, I picked up the nearest one. A dark-skinned, pale-haired child with an angel's wings - too old to be a cherub, more like a small boy - stood in the middle of a dark forest, looking around in terror. His hand was outstretched, reaching for a shadow disappearing off the edge of the page, the unknown figure walking away from him, leaving him behind.

I drew a shuddering breath and picked up the next one. In this one, that same angel - now a willowy adolescent, his thin, maturing body draped in the ubiquitous short toga with strapped sandals wound around his ankles - stood with his shoulders hunched in the midst of a crowd of jeering figures. He held an ornate harp cradled protectively against his body, trying to shield it from further harm. Its strings were sprung and its frame cracked and bent.

In the last one, an even more mature version of the angel - now a young man - knelt on one knee in another clearing in the woods. He was bruised and bleeding, his toga torn and stained. He held the bloody, tattered remnants of one of his wings, trying futilely to piece it back together. ~ Amelia C. Gormley

Sure enough, a few moments later, an enormous blue-green SeaWing emerged from the water, shaking her wings vigorously. She was powerfully built, as big as Morrowseer, with broad shoulders and gleaming teeth and a healing burn scar on her neck, and she had a trident longer than Deathbringer strapped to her back. Holy mother of lava, Deathbringer thought. I'm supposed to kill THAT? Commander Tempest was followed by two more SeaWings: a big green male dragon with dark green eyes and gold bands around his ankles, and a wiry female with small eyes and dark gray-blue scales. Behind them, keeping their scales in the water as they eyed the troops on the beach, were about twenty other SeaWing soldiers. "Blister!" Commander Tempest shouted, stamping one foot in the sand. "We're here! Let's get this over with!" The ~ Tui T. Sutherland

Lakshmibai was forced to abandon Jhansi, but she left it the same way she fought for it– on horseback, with her song strapped to her back. ~ Mackenzi Lee

Any more motherly attention and I could end up strapped to a table in Ward B singing 'I Gotta Be Me. ~ Kristin Hannah

The world is one unending chess match, my dear, and I am the one playing it how I please. I poke and prod to move my pieces to places I find desirable. And the defiant ones who resist me I simply remove from the board." He pulled up his right sleeve, showing Laura a sheathed dagger strapped to his arm. "But you, Laura, are not of this chess match at all. You walked unexpectedly onto my board, scattering my pieces out of the way, the ones that I had worked on so tirelessly to arrange to perfection. ~ J.S. Bailey

I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die-
No.
Heather took a deep breath and tried to think about something else. Anything else.
Like ponies.
Ponies were a happy thought. They were nice and gentle and they never kidnapped people or strapped them to cold warehouse pillars.
Ponies, ponies, ponies-
"Tie him up by the girl and for God's sake don't kill him!" Clare's - er, Raven's - voice was like nails on a chalkboard as it floated into Heather's ears.
Any attempts to think of ponies came to an abrupt halt. ~ Chelsea Fine

I admired Stalkers style. He was incredibly fast using two small blades strapped to the backs of his hands. Slash slash slash. Fighting him you wouldn't die of one great wound but instead bleed out slowly surprised to find yourself weak and dying after a thousand cuts. ~ Ann Aguirre

Beckett finally allowed himself to turn to her, to see what they saw. He had to smile. She was sheer sex and sin. The boots were old favorites with high, steel heels. And as predicted, her pants were orgasmically tight. She had a corset on, goddamn it, and her tits were so distracting it was obscene. Across her chest hung rounds of ammo like she'd just won the beauty pageant of death, and a leather jacket topped the whole fucking thing off. Well, that and the impressive automatic weapon slung over her shoulder. She pulled her favorite knife from where it was strapped to her thigh next to another. She twirled her hair into a bun and slid the knife into it, meeting his gaze when it was set. Eve was magnificent. Every damn time. ~ Debra Anastasia

By the time we leave, I have red lips and curled eyelashes, and I'm wearing a bright red dress. And there's a knife strapped to the inside of my knee. This all makes perfect sense. ~ Veronica Roth

Are you ready?" Nahri asked when she and Munthadir were alone.
He laughed as he strapped a wicked-looking sword to his waist. "Not in the slightest. You ?"
"God, no." Nahri grabbed another needle-sharp dagger and flipped it into her sleeve. "Let's go die. ~ S.A. Chakraborty

When my father died in Greece, leaving my mother strapped, a cheque arrived next day from my Greek publishers who'd just bought two of my books for pounds 500. ~ Emma Tennant

I'm trying to figure out how much I need to deposit into the Kate-have-a-good-time fund," he said.
"It's pretty empty.You might have to make a substanial deposit." I couldn't believe how breathless I sounded,like I'd been running beside a snowmobile instead of riding on it.
His grin grew."I'm still strapped for cash."
"You're torturing me,you know thst? Did you take lessons from Sam?"
"I'm torturing you?Geez,you've been torturing me since the day we got here. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Shotgun!" announced Clary as Jace came back around the side of the van.
Alec grabbed for his bow, strapped across his back. "Where?"
"She means she wants the front seat," said Jace, pushing wet hair out of his eyes. ~ Cassandra Clare

In my mind's eye, the image of bodies dancing quickly fades into the image of a group of men standing in a circle outside a club, trading stories in perfect American English, and then to the awkward silence caused by the sudden appearance of a middle-aged woman in tattered clothes, a baby strapped to her chest, a hand stretched out for loose change. ~ Bobby Benedicto

Growing up I was afraid of heights; if I looked down I got instantly queasy. So what did I decide to do a few years ago? Go skydiving with my sisters. I stood on the ground, waiting for my turn, watching them jump out of a small plane strapped to some dude's back. All I could see were these tiny blond dots floating in the air. Then one of the instructors (thankfully he was on his own and not tied to a Hough!) lost control of his chute. It got twisted and he began to spiral toward the ground. Everyone watching below gasped; he was plunging to his death. At the very last second, he pulled his auxiliary chute and glided down to safety.
After landing, he walked right over to me. "Phew, that was a close one. Okay, Derek, you're up next. You're comin' with me."
I felt my stomach leap into my throat. Are you serious? You're a dead man walking and you want me to go up with you? Then reason kicked in: What was the likelihood lightning would strike twice and his chute would fail again? And if it did, clearly the guy knew how to get out of trouble.
"Um, okay…I guess." I read the disclaimer and signed it. In a nutshell, it said, "If you die, we're not responsible." Thanks a lot. ~ Derek Hough

I strip myself emotionally when I confess need – that I would be lost without you, that I am not necessarily the independent person I have tried to appear, but am a far less admirable weakling with little clue of life's course or meaning. When I cry and tell you things I trust you will keep for yourself, that would destroy me if others were to learn of them, when I give up the game of gazing seductively at parties and admit it's you I care about, I am stripping myself of a carefully sculpted illusion of invulnerability. I become as defenseless and trusting as the person in the circus trick, strapped to a board into which another is throwing knives to within inches of my skin, knives I have myself freely given. I allow you to see me humiliated, unsure of myself, vacillating, drained of self-confidence, hating myself and hence unable to convince you [should I need to] to do otherwise. I am weak when I have shown you my panicked face at three in the morning, anxious before existence, free of the blustering, optimistic philosophies I had proclaimed over dinner. I learn to accept the enormous risk that though I am not the confident pin-up of everyday life, though you have at hand an exhaustive catalogue of my fears and phobias, you may nevertheless love me. ~ Alain De Botton

Nat realised they had a lot of talking to do, but she did question Isabella's timing. In her experience, matters of the heart should not be discussed when one party had a silicone cock strapped to their waist while the other's mouth went dry at the thought of it entering her. ~ Harper Bliss

Some people would look at a backing track as something that would confine you, but it really frees us up. It's nice not to be strapped down to a certain spot when you're trying to put on a show. ~ Tyler Joseph

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. In the case of William Jessup Brady, it's been hand carved with a lever-action Henry rifle over his shoulder and a Smith & Wesson six-gun strapped to his hip.' – Solace Walters ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

For daughters of the new American billionaires of the 19th century, it was the ultimate deal: marriage to a cash-strapped British Aristocrat in return for a title and social status. But money didn't always buy them happiness. ~ Daisy Goodwin

When I see your picture in its frame,
A strait jacket, pity rises in me,
And stronger than pity, revulsion.
It is as if you had never been.

Nobody in the world can know your love,
You are strapped to the nothingness of ages,
Nobody can will you into life,
It is as if you had never been.

I cannot break your anonymity,
The absolute has imprisoned you,
Most sentient, most prescient, most near.
It is as if you had never been. ~ Richard Eberhart

Jonathon stretched his arms, like he was reading himself for exercise. He leaned back and asked, "Why are you doing this?"
Robin was a bit surprised by the blunt question. "Doing what? Laying here, strapped to this table? I'll be honest, I've asked myself the same question. ~ Jaron Lee Knuth

And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow. In the end you don't even want to. In the end, you do not even want to. In the end, the shadow is all you have left. Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself - And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover

1

I don't believe in omens or fear
Forebodings. I flee from neither slander
Nor from poison. Death does not exist.
Everyone's immortal. Everything is too.
No point in fearing death at seventeen,
Or seventy. There's only here and now, and light;
Neither death, nor darkness, exists.
We're all already on the seashore;
I'm one of those who'll be hauling in the nets
When a shoal of immortality swims by.


2

If you live in a house - the house will not fall.
I'll summon any of the centuries,
Then enter one and build a house in it.
That's why your children and your wives
Sit with me at one table, -
The same for ancestor and grandson:
The future is being accomplished now,
If I raise my hand a little,
All five beams of light will stay with you.
Each day I used my collar bones
For shoring up the past, as though with timber,
I measured time with geodetic chains
And marched across it, as though it were the Urals.


3

I tailored the age to fit me.
We walked to the south, raising dust above the steppe;
The tall weeds fumed; the grasshopper danced,
Touching its antenna to the horse-shoes - and it prophesied,
Threatening me with destruction, like a monk.
I strapped my fate to the saddle;
And even now, in these coming times,
I stand up in the stirrups like a chil ~ Arseny Tarkovsky

...Reality is a two-ton weight strapped to your balls. And they just keep getting heavier. ~ Richard Kadrey

The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect's brow, and slid round the electrodes strapped to his temples. These were attached to a battery of electronic equipment - imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dumpers - all designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the poet's thought was lost. ~ Douglas Adams

Oh, Fortuna, blind, heedless goddess, I am strapped to your wheel,' Ignatius belched, 'Do not crush me beneath your spokes. Raise me on high, divinity. ~ John Kennedy Toole

Some field days can be tough. I've worked inside fuel tanks with 3 foot ceilings, in -42 to +42 Celsius temperatures, in snow and smoke and hail, and I've dug through snow and ice and pavement to find legal evidence. I've worked clear through the night by headlamp, and I've flown in a rickety long-islander with propane tanks strapped into the other seats. I've jury-rigged missing equipment, broken into my own truck, and cut out an emergency helicopter pad with a machete. I've been hungry, cold, tired, lost, injured, and downright hopeless! ~ Mark Mason

She ran and didn't slow until she came to a hallway that terminated in a multipaned window of thick, old-fashioned glass. Her breath rasped in her throat, but the dizziness and nausea eased enough that she stood steadier on her feet. She heard again the gentle ringing of metal sliding against metal. Musty air rose up with the same smell of leather and dust, an acrid undertone beneath. She whipped her head toward the end of the hall. At first she didn't see anything. The light shifted and swirled, and the swordsman materialized from the shadows. Gold and red emblazoned his tunic in a chevron against a cobalt background. The sword was back in its scabbard, strapped across his back. He was tall, with broad shoulders and dark hair, and he looked like Sebastian. Timed to the wind stirring the ivy outside, he vanished through the wall. ~ Carolyn Jewel

Okay. Parachuting on its own? Maybe not so terrifying. Parachuting into a Mexican jungle at night while strapped to an angry Uchben man named Brutus? An unimaginable nightmare that would haunt my every waking moment for the rest of my life. ~ Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

They were written in the early '90s when I was strapped for cash. ~ Jonathan Coe

The air of the islands, she believed, was different than the air of other regions of the world. It engulfed her now, carrying with it flavors of sun-drenched soil and foam-flecked sea, aromas of virgin woods and naked rocks, its tang of citrus trees and its fizz of foreign wine-misted lips. It carried in its pockets the sounds of children's laughter, the clatter of drunken brawls, the mandolin music thrumming sensually from decades-old cassette tapes in the colorful souvenir shops where old ladies and young women waved at passersby. It came from near and far, rebounding off the blue-white flag strapped to ferry masts rearing above the sparkling waters, glinting in the brown-eyed winks and twirled mustaches of the locals. ~ Angela Panayotopulos

All that had been trivial, that had been comforting and familiar and safe, now seemed to be strapped with explosives. ~ Louise Penny

The streets were full of hurrying people who walked as though they had been wound up and were directed by some unseen control. Many of the men carried dispatch cases and brief cases and I gripped mine with a sense of importance. And here and there I saw Negroes who hurried along with leather pouches strapped to their wrists. They reminded me fleetingly of prisoners carrying their leg irons as they escaped from a chain gang. Yet they seemed aware of some self-importance, and I wished to stop one and ask him why he was chained to his pouch. Maybe they got paid well for this, maybe they were chained to money. Perhaps the man with rundown heels ahead of me was chained to a million dollars! ~ Ralph Ellison

Some people wear their heart up on their sleeve. I wear mine underneath my right pant leg, strapped to my boot. ~ Ani DiFranco