Strokes Quotes

An abundance of peer-reviewed science is showing that a whole foods, plant-based diet prevents most heart attacks, strokes, and even many kinds of cancer. It gets you to your ideal weight easily and sustainably, reverses Type 2 diabetes, and even fixes erectile dysfunction (because it greatly improves circulation!). ~ Kathy Freston

Since I retired, I very much enjoy watching Serena Williams play. While I was playing, she was one of the toughest players I ever faced. Her ground strokes are so solid, her serve is one of the most powerful in women's tennis, and mentally she is just so strong. ~ Monica Seles

You know some of the people in The Strokes, yeah, their parents had success - but we didn't live like yuppies. ~ Julian Casablancas

Each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study, and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our souls. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable. But just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint complement each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results. ~ David A. Bednar

I was asked, "How can we change the world?" And I answered, "You will never be able to change the world by projecting ideal images to aspire for. The only way to change the world is to penetrate the grassroots, to penetrate at the groundbreaking level - to be a mason - to dig into the core where all the tar and lumpy mud is located and to work with that shit until you bring out something beautiful. We change the world by dressing wounds, by listening to forgotten voices of the lost, by getting our hands dirty. Nobody is going to be able to change the world by painting a lovely picture. You have to know how to make paint. Then teach the people how to use a paintbrush. Then teach the people how to make strokes, how to wash the paintbrush, and how to mount their own paintings onto the wall. Because the alchemy of the world, of humanity as a whole, is really just the collective alchemy of every individual. Take what is darkness and transmutate it into a shining thing. Changing the world is never about the changer; it is about the world. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Some lives drift here and there like reeds in a stream, depending on changing currents for their activity. Others are like swimmers knowing the depth of the water. Each stroke helps them onward to a definite objective. ~ Margaret Sanger

When my brother called to inform me, on the morning of May 22, 2003, that our mother Caroline Oates had died suddenly of a stroke, it was a shock from which, in a way, I have yet to recover. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Watching It Happen

I laze about, deranged and unafraid
to godly kiss you, kiss the pharmacist
that whipped you, undilute, to dilate high
your animus of lime and lye.

I know of an upstairs hell.
A creamy, vascular thump
through bonus years of things that pass
and things that do not move.
Your cellular mouth. Your mess
of inattention. Now that none
of us are good looking I think
that/they are right.

Strokes of light you taped across my nipple.
Patterns staked to fake the love
we cannot feel so slick the miser
of your hand through my bad heart.
Genius, you are blond enough.
Once in a while.

And in the end, when I sweep coolly up
and will not be drawn back,
then I will tell you of it. How I can.
In writing, I am making an attempt
to depict my beautiful nose
through imagery.

I will tell you of it. Once in a while.
I will miss you. And the tape.
To be flung down,
petals from a balcony. ~ Elaine Kahn

Many stroke survivors look back on their attack as a stroke of luck. Of course, by luck they mean horrible paralysis. ~ Dana Gould

Painting is like golf; the fewer strokes I take, the better the picture. ~ John Marin

A new study found that people who are depressed have a greater risk of stroke. Well that should cheer them up. ~ Jay Leno

It is so easy to let life go by us in its swift amusing course, that sometimes it hardly seems worthwhile to attempt any bold strokes for truth. Truth, of course, does not need assistance; it can afford to ignore our errors. But in this quiet place, among the whisper of the trees, I seem to have heard a disconcerning sound. I have heard laughter, and I think it is the laughter of God. ~ Christopher Morley

Enough of satire; in less harden'd times
Great was her force, and mighty were her rhymes.
I've read of men, beyond man's daring brave,
Who yet have trembled at the strokes she gave;
Whose souls have felt more terrible alarms
From her one line, than from a world in arms. ~ Charles Churchill

There are certain things - How to say this? OK. Let me give you an example. Can I give you an example? There's a self-portrait by Rembrandt. It's at Kenwood House, very close to where we live. It's one of my favorite paintings. I go to see it quite a lot. I start off on a walk on the Heath, and then I find myself there. It's one of the last self-portraits he did. He painted it sometime between 1665 and when he died four years later, bankrupt and alone. Whole stretches of the canvas are bare. There's a hurried intensity in the strokes - you can see where he scratched into the wet paint with the end of the brush. It's as if he knew there wasn't much time left. And yet, there's a serenity in his face, a sense of something that's survived its own ruin.
Fran couldn't give two shits about that painting. ~ Nicole Krauss

Bellamy Plunged Into The Lake and Closed The Distance Between Them With a Few
Powerful Strokes. He'd Boasted About Teaching Himself To Swim. During His Treks to The Stream and For Once He Had'nt Been
Exaggerating.

He Disappeared Under The Water,Just Long Enough for Clarke To Feel a Flicker of Worry
then His Hand Grasped Her Wrist and She Squealed as He Spun Her Around. Expecting
Him to Splash Her in Retaliation,But Bellamy
Just Stared at Her For a Moment Before Raising a Hand and Running His Fingers Along Her Neck "No Gills Yet" He Said Softly ~ Kass Morgan

The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness - he must come one day. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't have time for a stroke! ~ Jill Bolte Taylor

Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said
I wist not what, saving one word
Delight.
And all her face was honey to my mouth,
And all her body pasture to my eyes;
The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,
The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,
The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs
And glittering eyelids of my soul's desire. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Some strong-willed children absolutely demand to be spanked, and their wishes should be granted ... [T]wo or three stinging strokes on the legs or buttocks with a switch are usually sufficient to emphasize the point, 'You must obey me.' ~ James Dobson

APPLES SCENT,
You arrive in the basement. Immediatly it catches you. Apples are here, lying on fruit trays, turned crates. You didn't think about it. You had no wish to be flooded by this melancholic wave. But you can't resist. Apple scent is a breaker. How could you manage without this childhood, bitter and sweet ?
Shrivelled fruits surely are delicious, from this feak dryness where candied taste seems to have wormed in each wrinkle. But you don't wish to eat them. Particularly don't turn into an identifiable taste this floating power of smell. Say that it smells good, strong? But not ..... It's beyond .... An inner scent, scent of a better oneself. Here is shut up school autumn, with purple ink we scratch paper with down strokes and thin strokes. Rain bangs against glasses, evening will be long ....
But apple perfume is more than past. You think about formerly because of fullness and intensity from a remembrance of salpetered cellar, dark attic. But it's to live here, stay here, stand up.
You have behind you high herbs and damp orchards. Ahead it's like a warm blow given in the shade. Scent got all browns, all reds with a bit of green acid. Scent distilled skin softness, its tiny roughness. Lips dried, we alreadyt know that this thirst is not to be slaked.
Nothing would happen if you bite the white flesh. You would need to become october, mud floor, moss of cellar, rain, expectation.
Apple scent is painful. It's from a stronger life, a slowness ~ Philippe Delerm

Do you think George Bush actually knows who Gordon Brown is? He probably just thinks Tony Blair's put on weight and had a mild stroke. ~ Frankie Boyle

I once knew a fellow who committed robbery with violence, and he was sentenced to a long prison stretch and 12 strokes of the cat. He'd been injured during the robbery, so they put him in hospital to make him better so that they could make him worse. During the administration of the cat, he fainted after six strokes, and the doctor put him in hospital again. And he got very friendly with the nurses and the doctors, and after a while they got him well enough to go back and take the next six strokes. I saw him afterward and I said: "Oh, Jesus - that bloody law, that bloody judge!" But he said: "I don't want the fellow who made the law, and I don't want the fellow who passed the sentence. All I want is the fellow who held the bloody whip. ~ Peter O'Toole

Anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just 'talents.' Hemingway later invented his own form also. The criterion for judging talent or genius is ephemeral, speaking rationally in this world of graphs, but one gets the feeling definitely when a writer of genius amazes him by strokes of force never seen before and yet hauntingly familiar. ~ Jack Kerouac

Tucker strokes my hair. There's something so tender about the gesture. It might as well have been him whispering I love you. ~ Cynthia Hand

Once his hair was smooth and free of mats, Martise ran the comb through it for sheer pleasure. He had beautiful hair, straight and black and falling to his waist. It spread across a strong back and wide shoulders, dampening his shirt to a transparent thinness. She slid her hand under its weight and caressed his nape with light strokes of the comb. His shoulders slumped, and he lowered his head in mute invitation for her to continue. He breathed deep, relaxing under her touch. Martise was anything but relaxed. She was on fire, recalling those moments in the library when he'd given her a taste of the passion burning within him. He was her dreams manifested, a bright and volatile star in a winter sky. ~ Grace Draven

A picture that is beautiful, or that comes off, or that works, looks as if it was all made at one stroke. ~ Helen Frankenthaler

A wave of nausea came over me. And yet. Sometimes you need a stroke of genius and, lo and behold, genius comes and strokes you ~ Nicole Krauss

Ye examined Feng. The kerosene lamp was a wonderful artist and created a classical painting with dignified colors and bright strokes: Feng had her coat draped over her shoulders, exposing her red belly-band, and a strong, graceful arm. The glow from the kerosene lamp painted her figure with vivid, warm colors, while the rest of the room dissolved into a gentle darkness. Close attention revealed a dim red glow, which didn't come from the kerosene lamp, but the heating charcoal on the ground. The cold air outside sculpted beautiful ice patterns on the windowpanes with the room's warm, humid air. ~ Liu Cixin

I therefore concluded it was wisest to take quietly whatever he chose to inflict, but as the strokes fell upon my back, I firmly resolved that I would no longer be a slave. I would now escape or die in the attempt. They might shoot me down if they chose, but I would not live a slave. ~ James Curry

I have an insane desire to shave a stroke or two off my handicap. ~ Alistair Cooke

Their train speeds through the cities and crosses rivers until it reaches Paris. They leave the station, their arms around each other, and walk to the Jardin des Plantes where the panther paces the length of his cage. The young teacher nods as Hannelore Beier reaches into the cage, and strokes the animal's magnificent neck. The panther arches his back. A curtain lifts from his pupils as the pastor's sister slides aside the bolt that has kept him in captivity. His eyes like sudden, green flames, he recognizes a world beyond the bars of his cage. ~ Ursula Hegi

As there is no worldly gain without some loss, so there is no worldly loss without some gain; if thou hast lost thy wealth, thou hast lost some trouble with it; if thou art degraded from thy honor, thou art likewise freed from the stroke of envy; if sickness hath blurred thy beauty, it hath delivered thee from pride. Set the allowance against the loss, and thou shalt find no loss great; he loses little or nothing, that reserves himself. ~ Francis Quarles

I used to be a Catholic, and when I first started police work, I worried about that. I saw a lot of people dead or dying for no apparent reason . . . not people I killed, just people. Little kids who'd drowned, people dying in auto accidents and with heart attacks and strokes. I saw a lineman burn to death, up on a pole, little bits and pieces, and nobody could help . . . . I watched them go, screaming and crying and sometimes just lying there with their tongues stuck out, heaving, with all the screaming and hollering from friends and relatives . . . and I never saw anyone looking beyond. I think, Michael, I think they just blink out. That's all. I think they go where the words on a computer screen go, when you turn it off. One minute they exist, maybe they're even profound, maybe the result of a great deal of work. The next . . . . Whiff. Gone. ~ John Sandford

I think the best post-breakup album is The Strokes' first album. It's just fun. ~ Patrick Carney

I've always felt, it's a gift of God, whatever I have, whatever has made me do what I do for as long as I do it. But I know I can lose that in one second. A stroke. Whatever. One second. Blow the whole thing. So, when you do think about that, you realize how fortunate and how blessed you've been, and that's really how I feel. ~ Vin Scully

The rapture was severe, absolute as death, delivering him.
He made no effort to prolong it. The peak came fast, slamming into him with a power that took his breath, and then he tumbled into a violent, shuddering release, the spasms piercing. He came endlessly, cradling her in his arms, hunching over her as if he could protect her, even as he lunged into her with ravenous strokes.
She was shaking in the aftermath, thrills of reaction running through her from head to toe. He held her, trying to comfort her, pulling her head against his chest. His eyes were blurred and hot, and he blotted them against a velvet cushion.
It took a while for him to realize that the trembling came not from her, but him. ~ Lisa Kleypas

There sometimes wants only a stroke of fortune to discover numberless latent good or bad qualities, which would otherwise have been eternally concealed. ~ Greville Janner, Baron Janner Of Braunstone

Programming is similar to a game of golf. The point is not getting the ball in the hole but how many strokes it takes. ~ Hayley Mills

Paris is a sensuous woman every man has loved, even if only in his dreams. Once he has been deep inside her, walked her streets and tasted her delights, he can never forget her. Yet no matter how strong the memory of her remains, it cannot prepare him for the sheer beauty of her nakedness as he gazes upon her for the second time; the intoxicating fragrance of her hair as it brushes against him as it did when she let him love her; the softness of her skin beneath his fingertips as he strokes her breathtakingly graceful form; or the searing fire which courses through every fiber of his soul now that she is within reach.

For every man blessed with a woman's love, she is a shrine to his happiness now that he need search no more. But for those who reside in obscurity within the lonely domicile of an empty heart, she is the hope of finding love. In his tortured heart, love waits for him at a corner cafe in the woman's smile two tables away; it lingers in the melodic laughter of a girl riding past him on a bicycle; and sometimes, when the woman is smiling at someone else, and the girl rides past him without notice, he finds love beneath the skirt of the darkly sensual woman waiting for him under a streetlamp. ~ Bobby Underwood

She writes that one of the moments that she felt most useful was when her mother had a headache, and she would stroke her head and rub her forehead. And I think Eleanor Roosevelt's entire life was dedicated to two things: (one) making it better for all people, people in trouble and in need, like her family. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook

Associated with this weight gain are increased risks
in adulthood for joint problems, angina, high blood pressure, heart
attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes and, ultimately, premature death.
Outside of the human costs, health experts estimate that treating
adult obesity-related ailments will cost the American economy
nearly $150 billion in 2009. ~ Jeff Schweitzer

Folks who are getting their strokes in the South are not as unhappy with Howard Dean. You don't see anybody starting any movement to get him out of office. ~ Gwen Ifill

But I am I now; and so many other millions are so irretrievably their own special variety of 'I' that I can hardly bear to think of it. I: how firm a letter; how reassuring the three strokes: one vertical, proud and assertive, and then the two short horizontal lines in quick, smug succession. The pen scratching on the paper ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I. ~ Sylvia Plath

When she started with the first empty canvas, she didn't know what she was going to paint, she just let her paint brushes glide and they religiously followed the trajectory of her angst; the choice of colours and the strokes, they were all a reflection of what was going through her mind. The reds were the embers within her that refused to die. The blues were the rare instances when she was spent by her grief. The blacks were her moments of absolute weakness, the colour of the bottomless pit within her that she had plunged into, falling through and through.
The brush strokes moved around blank canvases like snakes with fangs of elixir that filled her scars with a deluge of hope and a gale of faith in herself. The colours spoke to her in whispers, narrating their own tale while she poured out hers to them. They allowed her to channel her life through them. They listened. They cared. They laughed. They cried. They reassured her that there was life waiting ahead, staring at her past, urging her forward with eager arms. And Preeti rushed into them with her brush in hand that rose along with her and fell along with her. ~ Faraaz Kazi

NOURISH YOUR HAIR:
1. There are a number of 'kitchen recipes' for feeding hair. It needs the contents of your refrigerator just as much as your skin does. Right back to mayonnaise! Olive oil, eggs, and lemon juice. Massage the mixture into your hair, let it stay on for ten or fifteen minutes, then rinse it off with cool water. Cool - or you'll have scrambled eggs on your head.
2. For years I washed my daughter' hair with raw eggs, never soap or shampoo. I wet their hair fist and then rubbed in six whole eggs, one by one - a trick I learned from Katherine. Hepburn. (Four eggs will do for short hair, but theirs was long.) Some people use eggs beaten up with a jigger of rum; others mix an egg with red wine.
3. Hot oils is good for dry hair. Apply it with the fingertips and then wrap your head in a warm towel. Keep changing the oil for an hour, to keep it hot and penetrating. Then shampoo.
4. I believe in brushing. I made my girls give their hair the old-fashioned hundred strokes every night, using two brushes, and bending forward from the waist. It stimulates hair grows, and the rush of blood to the face is an added benefit. I pull my hair gently to encourage growth too. ~ Joan Crawford

There's a hurried intensity in the strokes
you can see where he scratched into the wet paint with the end of the brush. It's as if he knew there wasn't much time left. And yet, there's a serenity in his face, a sense of something that's survived its own ruin. ~ Nicole Krauss

Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius. ~ William Shakespeare

Start her, now; give 'em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy
start her, all; but keep cool, keep cool
cucumbers is the word
easy, easy
only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys
that's all. Start her! ~ Herman Melville

Thanks for getting me out of there," I murmur, lacing my fingers around my knees, and looking up at him on his step.
"Yeah. You looked a little green. "
"I don't handle crowds too well. I've always been that way, I guess."
"You might get in trouble," he warns, staring at me in that strange, hungry way that unravels me. He strokes his bottom lip with a finger. For a flash of a second, his eyes look strange. Different. All glowing irises and thin dark pupils. Almost drake-like. I blink to clear my vision. His eyes are normal again. Just my imagination in overdrive. I'm probably projecting missing home and Az - everything--onto him. "Pep rallies are mandatory," he continues. "A lot of people saw you leave. Teachers included."
"They saw you leave, too," I point out.
He leans to the side, propping an elbow on one of the steps behind him. "I'm not worried about that. I've been in trouble before." He smiles a crooked grin and holds up crossed fingers. "The principal and I are like this. The guy loves me. Really."
Laughter spills from me, rusty and hoarse.
His grin makes me feel good. Free. Like I'm not running from anything. Like I could stay here in this world, if only I have him.
The thought unsettles me. Sinks heavily in my chest. Because I can't have him. Not really. All he can ever be for me is a temporary fix.
"But you're worried I'll get in trouble?" I try not to show how much this pleases me. I've managed to ignore him for days n ~ Sophie Jordan

We sat at long tables side by side in a big

dusty room where we laughed and carried

on until they told us to pipe down and paint.

The running joke was how we glowed,

the handkerchiefs we sneezed into lighting

up our purses when we opened them at night,

our lips and nails, painted for our boyfriends

as a lark, simmering white as ash in a dark room.

"Would you die for science?" the reporter asked us,

Edna and me, the main ones in the papers.

Science? We mixed up glue, water and radium

powder into a glowing greenish white paint

and painted watch dials with a little

brush, one number after another, taking

one dial after another, all day long,

from the racks sitting next to our chairs.

After a few strokes, the brush lost its shape,

and our bosses told us to point it with

our lips. Was that science?

I quit the watch factory to work in a bank

and thought I'd gotten class, more money,

a better life, until I lost a tooth in back

and two in front and my jaw filled up with sores.

We sued: Edna, Katherine, Quinta, Larice and me,

but when we got to court, not one of us

could raise our arms to take the oath.

My teeth were gone by then. "Pretty Grace

Fryer," they called me in the papers.

~ Eleanor Swanson

One of the reasons they [the Japanese] have bad eyesight is probably these microscopic characters [furigana] which have many lines and strokes to them.& We wonder why they went mad and bombed Pearl Harbor when they knew they couldn't win. That [the Japanese language] would be a reason. ~ L. Ron Hubbard

The Strokes, you bond when you're 18, and you're friends. The feeling's different. When all of us get into a room, we feel like the same people from before. We weren't anybody; we were just hanging out. It's hard to understand if you're not in a band. You're one-fifth. ~ Albert Hammond, Jr.

Optimal Tower is a skyscraper unlike its predecessors, rising skyward as an artistic endeavor, spirited and soulful, with a steel and glass manifestation reminiscent of Claude Monet's water lilies, and instantly dismissive of the gray, steel and mortar structures of the past. The architects and builders have pilfered Monet's color pallet and painted this vertical stretch of the Cavanaugh skyline with the delicate greens and blues and grays and yellows of Giverny. Somehow, in the structure, the sensibility of an impressionist painting emerges as the muted colors are faded in splotches and sunlit in others, with gradual transitions as subtle as the delicate brush strokes of the master himself. Steel beams crisscross haphazardly throughout the towering facade, which only reinforces its intrinsic impressionistic essence by emulating the natural randomness of the lily pond. Atop the structure, a simple fifty foot spire seems to rein in the freeform work beneath it as it merges the natural splendor into one straight pinnacle skyward. This one hundred and fifteen story building reaches twenty-five stories above its surroundings, creating a gloriously artful and peaked skyline not unlike the Alps in France that will be instantly recognizable the world over and cause onlookers to gasp and utter, "C'est Magnifique. ~ Michael Bowe

But it was hard to keep his hands still. He could almost feel them twitching emphatically with his strong desire to reach out and stroke the dog's head. He had such a terrible yearning to love something again, and the dog was such a beautiful ugly dog. ~ Richard Matheson

A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of the land. ~ Aldo Leopold

The best short stories and the most successful jokes have a lot in common. Each form relies on suggestion and economy. Characters have to be drawn in a few deft strokes. There's generally a setup, a reveal, a reversal, and a release. ~ Geraldine Brooks

Monet was like a conductor. He painted with quite a straight arm and used bold strokes. ~ Richard C. Armitage

The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram. ~ Don Marquis

Shut me up,
Turn me on,
Shut me up, ~ The Strokes

Bobby JonesConsidered objectively, it is quite obviously a very simple matter to propel a ball with a stick across some specially prepared ground and into a hole which is of sufficient size to accomodate it by a good margin. Simple that is, provided there is no limit upon the time or the number of strokes required. ~ Bobby Jones

See the first stroke as a start and everything after that a recovery. ~ Nathan Oliveira

Water, wind and birdsong were the echoes in this quiet place of a great chiming symphony that was surging around the world. Knee-deep in grasses and moon daisies, Stella stood and listened, swaying a little as the flowers and trees were swaying, her spirit voice singing loudly, though her lips were still, and every pulse in her body beating its hammer strokes in time to the song. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

Holding his gaze, she lifted her hips to bring him inside her.
He choked out a groan as he buried himself deep, his body pressed against hers, his length filling her, stretching her, more delicious than she'd imagined. He moved in long, sure strokes, deep, measured.
Controlled. Focused. ~ M.J. Fredrick

Mirren pulled the knife blade across the vampire's throat before he could answer. Two more strokes and it was done. Sometimes, one didn't need a sword to take a head. Rage and a good, sharp knife worked just fine. ~ Susannah Sandlin

It is extraordinary to see how the discovery of one single free stroke of paint can fill you with such joy and amazement. ~ Michele Cassou

Oh! I must somehow manage to do a figure in a few strokes. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

The mind is at every stage a theater of simultaneous possibilities. Consciousness consists in the comparison of these with each other, the selection of some, and the suppression of the rest by the reinforcing and inhibiting agency of attention. The highest and most elaborated mental products are filtered from the data chosen by the faculty next beneath, out of the mass offered by the faculty below that, which mass in turn was sifted from a still larger amount of yet simpler material, and so on. The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stood there from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest. Just so the world of each of us, how so ever different our several views of it may be, all lay embedded in the primordial chaos of sensations, which gave the mere matter to the thought of all of us indifferently. We may, if we like, by our reasonings unwind things back to that black and jointless continuity of space and moving clouds of swarming atoms which science calls the only real world. But all the while the world we feel and live in will be that which our ancestors and we, by slowly cumulative strokes of choice, have extricated out of this, like sculptors, by simply removing portions of the given stuff. Other sculptors, other statues from the same stone! Other minds, other worlds from the same monoto ~ William James

The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness. ~ Julia Ward Howe

Sometimes I get lost in the rhythm of the paddling. I even count the strokes it takes to get me to a point of land, The play of the muscles in one's arms and shoulders, and the feel of palm against worn wood, are preferable to glancing at a speedometer ~ Richard Proenneke

I used to be afraid of things like strokes, but I've now discovered that the fear of the stroke is worse than the stroke itself. ~ Ram Dass

. I want to say many things I must omit. It is not fit to wake the soul by tender strokes of art, or to ruminate upon happiness we might enjoy, lest absences become intolerable. ~ David McCullough

I paint a woman's big rounded buttocks so that I want to reach out and stroke the dimpled flesh. ~ Peter Paul Rubens

A small minority of strokes are hemorrhagic strokes, which are caused by bleeding into the brain when a blood vessel bursts. ~ Michael Greger

Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water, sings the pebbles into perfection. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Every sixty seconds, thirty acres of rain forest are destroyed in order to raise beef for fast-food restaurants that sell it to people, giving them strokes and heart attacks, which raise medical costs and insurance rates, providing insurance companies with more money to invest in large corporations that branch out further into the Third World so they can destroy more rain forests. ~ George Carlin

Flying back from New York, the flight attendant said 'God, I wished you were here yesterday, we had a stroke on the plane. I said, if I have a stroke on a plane, I hope the pretend doctor isn't the one on the plane. I want a real doctor. ~ Anthony Edwards

Because it's indeed difficult to portray, in any meaningful depth, another being, his appearance, speech, mentality, without to some degree, and often for quite trifling cause, offending him. The truth seems to be the nobody likes to see himself described as he is, or cares to see exactly set down what he said and did. Well, even i can understand that - because i don't like it myself when I am the sitter not the portraitist: the frailty of egos- and the more accurate the strokes, the greater the resentment. ~ Truman Capote

I love everything. The way she strokes her earlobe when she's thinking. The way she chews her pen when she's writing. The way she laughs. The way she smiles. The way she's kind. The way she cares. The way she listens. Just everything. She's just incredible. I've never met anyone quite like her before. ~ Kiki Archer

A great cricketer must be an artist and express himself in his strokes. ~ Margaret Hughes

How many strokes does it take?"

"One. Two. Three."

"Four. Five..."

"Six."

"Seven. Eight."

"Nine."

"What if Daddy. Ten. Finds out what I did. Eleven. To his innocent little girl?"

"Twelve."

"This is what you do to me. Feel it. Thirteen."

"Fourteen."

"Do What he says, Toni. Fifteen. Come."

His heated lips curved against her ear.

"Fifteen it is."

~Drake ~ Jennifer Turner

Burns immediately left the class, and going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression. "Hardened girl!" exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; "nothing can correct you of your slatternly habits: carry the rod away." Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek. ~ Charlotte Bronte

All great leaders find a sense of balance through their levels of reception. For instance, those who support a leader may soften him, those who ignore him may challenge him, and those who oppose him may stroke his ego. ~ Criss Jami

there are some broad strokes that can be fairly applied to most of us: We seek connection with others; We are saddened by loss, and try to avoid it; We dislike rejection; We like recognition and attention; We will do more to avoid pain than we will do to seek pleasure; We dislike ridicule and embarrassment; We care what others think of us; We seek a degree of control over our lives; ~ Gavin De Becker

Why do I say that I was responsible 'for the turn [your] life would take? That it was up to me 'to make [your] life livable?' In all, eleven lines of poison in three doses, over twenty pages; three tiny strokes that debase you and distort you, written seven years later, that rob us of the meaning of seven years of our life.
Who wrote those eleven lines? I mean: Who was I when I wrote those lines? I feel a painful need to give us back those seven years along with what you truly meant to me. ~ Andre Gorz

[ ... ] and after those big strokes, what's to tell? We run out of things that make us individual very quickly; all of us have far more in common than we do not have in common. ~ Douglas Coupland

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the under-workman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces, which come from the hand of the master. ~ David Hume

I wonder at times if we're not all blind. It just seems there are an abundance of books unread, paint strokes not admired, and performances unattended. So much attention painstakingly sought and not given. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The most exquisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence. ~ Joseph Addison

Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing. ~ Joan Didion

I watch her as she leaves. Everything about her is fluid as a river. Her messy hair, her xylophone voice, the strokes of her paintbrush. Even her camouflage army jacket hangs loose, flowing like ribbons. ~ Lisa Ann Sandell

Every new stroke of civilization has cost the lives of countless brave men, who have fallen defeated by the dragon, in their efforts to win the apples of the Hesperides, or the fleece of gold. Fallen in their efforts to overcome the old, half sordid savagery of the lower stages of creation, and win the next stage. ~ D.H. Lawrence

A few drugs - such as beta-blockers, statins and glycogen control medications - have proved very effective at managing hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and strokes. Most insurance plans charge something for them. Why not make drugs like these free? Not for everyone, but just the groups for whom they are provably effective. ~ Sendhil Mullainathan

In a language as idiomatically stressed as English, opportunities for misreadings are bound to arise. By a mere backward movement of stress, a verb can become a noun, an act a thing. To refuse, to insist on saying no to what you believe is wrong, becomes at a stroke refuse, an insurmountable pile of garbage. ~ Ian McEwan

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word crisis. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity. ~ Richard M. Nixon

I'm always afraid, because I do most of my stuff at home, where nobody bothers me, and I don't have to stroke somebody's ego or be careful about hurting someone's feelings. But I also want to know that I can still go into the world and be with other people and make music. ~ Jack White

Yo, I'm the illest. Plus I know more different strokes than Arnold and Willis. ~ Big Daddy Kane

She was a sweet girl but not really pretty, a rough sketch of a woman with a little of everything in her, one of those silhouettes which artists draw in three strokes on the tablecloth in a café after dinner, between a glass of brandy and a cigarette. Nature sometimes turns out creatures like that. ~ Guy De Maupassant

Sean was watching me, though. And Sean wiped the bryozoa residue from his hand across my stomach. This was the third time a boy had ever touched my bare tummy, and I'd had enough.
Through gritted teeth, like any extra movement might spread the bryozoa further across my skin, I told him, "I like you less than I did." I bailed over the side of the boat-the side opposite where the bryozoa returned to its native habitat. Deep in the warm water, I scrubbed at my tummy with both hands. A combination of bryozoa waste and Sean germs: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Leaning toward worst, because now I had slime on my hands. Or maybe this was psychosomatic. Holding my hands open in front of me in the water, I didn't see any slime. I rubbed my hands together anyway.
Something dove into the water beside me in a rush of bubbles. I came up for air. Sean surfaced, too, tossing sparkling drops of water from his hair. "You still like me a lot, though, right?"
"No prob. Green is the new black." Giving up on getting clean, I swam a few strokes back toward the platform to get out again. What I needed was a shower with chlorinated water and disinfectant soap. I might need to bubble out my belly button with hydrogen peroxide.
"What if I made it up to you?" He splashed close behind me. "What if I helped you get clean? We don't want you dirty." He moved both hands around me under the water, up and down across my tummy.
It was the fourth time a boy had to ~ Jennifer Echols

Outside, the clear-cut strokes of the town clock counting ~ Joseph Conrad

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death. ~ Francis Bacon