Sturdy Quotes

Here then is the truth about the Truth; the Truth is not bridge, sturdy to every step, a marvel of bound planks and supports from the known into the unknown, but a surging sea of smashed wood, flotsam and drowning sailors. ~ Julian Assange

My mother always called me 'sturdy' and said I have big bones. A little fat is what I am. ~ Andy Rooney

If we want to understand the actions of a man in the early 1860's, put yourself back there in his shoes. As a young man he began piloting steamboats on the Mississippi, a job he loved and wanted to do the rest of his life, he said. The Civil War ended traffic on the River and his job. He wrote about it in A History of A Campaign That Failed. He said: "I joined the Confederacy, served for two weeks, deserted, and the Confederacy fell." His attachment to the Southern ideal of slavery does not appear very sturdy. ~ Hal Holbrook

Then eventually Westwood arrived. He looked nothing like Reacher expected, but the reality fit the bill just as well as the preconceptions had. He was an outdoors type, not a lab rat, and sturdy rather than pencil-necked. He looked like a naturalist or an explorer. He had short but unruly hair, fair going gray, and a beard of the same length and color. He was red in the face from sunburn and had squint lines around his eyes. He was forty-five, maybe. He was wearing clothing put together from high-tech fabrics and many zippers, but it was all old and creased. He had hiking boots on his feet, with speckled laces like miniature mountain-climbing ropes. He was toting a canvas bag about as big as a mail carrier's. ~ Lee Child

Hope is a constant companion in this life. It is the one thing that neither cruel nature, God, nor other men can wrench from us. Health, wealth, beloved brothers and sisters, children, friends, the past, the future - all can be stolen from us as easily as an unguarded purse. But our greatest treasure, hope, remains. It is a sturdy little motor within, purring, ticking, driving us on when reason would suggest surrender. It is both the most pathetic and noblest thing about us, the most absurd and the most admirable quality we possess, for as long as we have hope, we also have the capacity for love, for caring, for decency. ~ Dean Koontz

Anything built on doubt is rocky.
Anything built on fear is shaky.
Anything built on hate is unsteady.
Anything built on wisdom is trustworthy.
Anything built on faith is sturdy.
Anything built on love is mighty. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Ours is truly a God-forsaken country. Difficult, indeed, is it for us to maintain the strength of will to do. We get no help in any real sense. There is no one, within miles of us, in converse with whom we might gain an accession of vitality. No one near seems to be thinking, or feeling, or working. Not a soul has any experience of big striving, or of really and truly living. They all eat and drink, do their office work, smoke and sleep, and chatter nonsensically. When they touch upon emotion they grow sentimental, when they reason they are childish. One yearns for a full-blooded, sturdy, and capable personality; these are all so many shadows, flitting about, out of touch with the world. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Every traveler knows too well the endless quest for the perfect travel bag: the one that's stylish enough to carry through Paris, sturdy enough to tote around Peru, and - most important - doesn't make your shoulder sag even before you've loaded it up with everything you need for a day of sightseeing. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

For me, where genre ends and literature begins doesn't matter. What matters is whether a given novel hits me with high impact. If it does, it probably is fulfilling the purpose of fiction. It has drawn me into a story world, held me captive, taken me on a journey with characters like none I've ever met, revealed truths I've somehow always known and insights that rock my brain. It's filled me with awe, which is to say it's made me see the familiar in a wholly new way and made the unfamiliar a foundational part of me. It both entertains and matters. It both captures our age and becomes timelessly great. It does all that with the sturdy tools of story and the flair of narrative art. ~ Donald Maass

The most sturdy nouns fell to faint approximations under my pen. ~ Alison Bechdel

I am not a Damsel In Distress who needs a Prince Charming. I am more of Rani Laxmi Bai who rides a Sturdy Horse. ~ Nikita Dudani

It takes as much time to build walls sturdy enough for wallflowers like you and me to lean against as it does for us to bloom. ~ Ayokunle Falomo

Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending. ~ Barbara Holland

Havin loved enough and lost enough,
I'm no longer searching,
just opening,
no longer trying to make sense of pain
but trying to be a soft and sturdy home
in which real things can land.
These are the irritations
that rub into a pearl.
So we can talk for a while
but then we must listen,
the way rocks listen to the sea.
And we can churn at all that goes wrong
but then we must lay all distractions
down and water every living seed.
And yes, on nights like tonight
I too feel along. But seldom do I
face it squarely enough
to see that it's a door
into the endless berath
that has no breather,
into the surf that human
shell calls God. ~ Mark Nepo

You shall see rude and sturdy, experienced and wise men, keeping their castles, or teaming up their summer's wood, or chopping alone in the woods, men fuller of talk and rare adventure in the sun and wind and rain, than a chestnut is of meat; who were out not only in '75 and 1812, but have been out every day of their lives; greater men than Homer, or Chaucer, or Shakespeare, only they never got time to say so; they never took to the way of writing. Look at their fields, and imagine what they might write, if ever they should put pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the face of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratching, and harrowing, and plowing, and subsoiling, in and in, and out and out, and over and over, again and again, erasing what they had already written for want of parchment. ~ Henry David Thoreau

We are respectable females. Of course we have delicate sensibilities." "No, Matty, what professional secretaries must possess in abundance are the qualities of intelligence, common sense and a willingness to do whatever is required to extricate one's person from potentially outrageous situations before they become outrageous. There are no knights in shining armor hanging about waiting to rescue us. We must deal with the world on our own. Which is, of course, why I make certain that all of my secretaries wear hats with large, sturdy hatpins. ~ Amanda Quick

A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Sturdy swimmers afloat on water-couch
Beneath the heavy bill their treasured pouch
Fishes pray for them to fly far away
Inland lakes toast to the Pelican's day ~ Munia Khan

As they prepared to mount, Barak's horse, a large, sturdy gray, sighed and threw a reproachful look at Hettar, and the Algar chuckled.
'What's so funny?' Barak demanded suspiciously.
'The horse said something,' Hettar replied. 'Never mind. ~ David Eddings

Philosophy is a proud, sullen detector of the poverty and misery of man. It may turn him from the world with a proud, sturdy contempt; but it cannot come forward and say, here are rest, grace, pardon, peace, strength, and consolation. ~ Richard Cecil

Century after century, we have prosecuted our insane conflicts from atop their backs, resting on their sturdy necks when we grew weary, eating their flesh when we were starving, disemboweling them and crawling inside their bodies when we were freezing. ~ John Jeremiah Sullivan

Looks like you dropped your phone," Livia challenged. As soon as it skittered to a stop, Livia brought one of her sturdy boots down on top of it with a satisfying crunch. "And lookie there. It broke. If you ever talk about my future children again, I'll feed you your own balls, assuming you have any. ~ Debra Anastasia

As the wind swelled, my tree started to sway. Almost like a human body it swung back and around, gently at first, then more and more wildly. While the swaying intensified, so did my fears that the trunk might snap and hurl me to the ground. But in time my confidence returned. Amazed at how the tree could be at once so flexible and so sturdy, I held on tight as it bent and waved, twisted and swirled, slicing curves and arcs through the air. With each graceful swing, I felt less a creature of the land and more a part of the wind itself.
"The rain began falling, it's sound merging with the splashing river and the singing trees. Branches streamed like waterfalls of green. Tiny rivers cascaded down every trunk, twisting through moss meadows and bark canyons. All the while, I rode out the gale. I could not have felt wetter. I could not have felt freer.
"When, at last, the storm subsided, the entire world seemed newly born. Sunbeams danced on rain-washed leaves. Curling columns of mist rose from every glade. The forest's colors shown more vivid, its smells struck more fresh. And I understood, for the first time in my life, that the Earth was always being remade, that life was always being renewed. That it may have been the afternoon of this particular day, but it was still the very morning of Creation. ~ T.A. Barron

The undiscriminating vulture is not our real danger: open scandal would simply drive him into profitless exile again, and would be no possible advantage to us. Neither should we fear our sturdy patriots who, like your father, are busy with their loyalties in queer and crooked ways. Our danger lies with the men who want to take this country by trunk and limb and wreak it into such a shape that it will fit them and their children for hose and jerkin in their old age."

"Some of them are sincere," said Lymond.

"I know: and such men will wreck us yet. Preserve us above all from the honest clod and the ambitious fanatic. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

The capacity to be overwhelmed by the beautiful is astonishingly sturdy and survives amidst the harshest distractions. ~ Susan Sontag

While I know some women who are stunningly sanguine when they're pregnant, I dissolve into a total mess. What normally appears sturdy turns fragile: the economy, the climate, humanity's baseline social contract. ~ Lauren Groff

Of the three Highwood sisters, she was the only dark-haired one, the only bespectacled one, the only one who preferred sturdy lace-up boots to silk slippers, and the only one who cared one whit about the difference between sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.
The only one with no prospects, no reputation to protect. ~ Tessa Dare

There was a time when I'd have killed Gmok without thinking. His pocket-sized goblin heart would have been exploded, his speckled green skin scorched with fire, or his mustard-yellow blood boiled with Black Magic until he was in a coma or dead. Maybe I would've also constructed another piece of furniture using his miniature skull as I'd once done with a thousand corpses of his kind. I'd slept so peacefully for decades on that glorious bed frame made of their tiny but sturdy bones. ~ Aubrey Law

Sail the main course in a simple sturdy craft. Keep her well stocked with short stories and long laughs. Go fast enough to get there but slow enough to see. Moderation seems to be the key. ~ Jimmy Buffett

Street people use cardboard all the time, and bum alleys are just shanties or lean-tos, though. They're nothing like my house! Mine is deluxe! It's a big, thick, super sturdy refrigerator box that I found at an appliance store! ~ Wendelin Van Draanen

For the Romans, gravitas denoted a man's metaphorical "heaviness" - a strength of purpose, sense of authority, depth of character, and commitment to the task at hand that together formed a structure sturdy enough to bear the weight of his significant responsibilities ~ Brett McKay

A fine and beautiful life lies before thee, because thou hast a lively mind and a good wit. Thine arms are very strong and sturdy. Swimming hath helped to make them so, but only because thou hast had the will to do it. Fret not, my son. None of us is perfect. It is better to have crooked legs than a crooked spirit. We can only do the best we can with what we have. That, after all, is the measure of success: what we do with what we have. ~ Marguerite De Angeli

What she revealed was not sexy lingerie, but a supportive piece of athletic equipment. After the consolation match that preceded the championship game, both Brazilian and Norwegian players removed their jerseys and exchanged them on the floor of the Rose Bowl. Chastain had previously removed her jersey after regulation to air it out. While training in Florida, the players frequently doffed their shirts after practice in the smothering heat, and they sometimes gave interviews in their sports bras, which were items of utility, not titillation. Chastain 'has brought instant attention to a piece of clothing that is humble and practical, not a traditional bra of shine and lace and cleavage, but a sturdy compression garment,' wrote Ann Gerhart of the Washington Post. 'The sports bra is the cloth symbol of Title IX's success. ~ Jere Longman

Although its growth may seem to have been slow, it is to be remembered that it is not a shrub, or plant, to shoot up in the summerand wither in the frosts. The Red Cross is a part of us
it has come to stay
and like the sturdy oak, its spreading branches shall yet encompass and shelter the relief of the nation. ~ Clara Barton

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window? ~ Pat Schneider

Misanthropes have some admirable - if paradoxical - virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you are likely to meet. Because good manners build sturdy walls, our distaste for intimacy makes us exceedingly cordial. "ships that pass in the night." As long as you remain a stranger we will be your friend forever. ~ Florence King

Mr. Grayson was just…explaining the workings of the ship." She attempted to tug her hand from Gray's grasp, shooting him a pained look when he refused to relinquish his prize.
Gray said smoothly, "Actually, we were discussing debts. Miss Turner still owes me her fare, and I-"
"And I told you, you'll have it today." Beneath that abomination of a skirt wrapped about his leg, she planted her heel atop his booted toe and transferred all her weight onto it. Firmly. Once again, Gray regretted trading his old, sturdy boots for these foppish monstrosities. Her little pointed heel bit straight through the thin leather.
With a tight grimace, Gray released her hand. He'd been about to say, and I have her handkerchief to return. But just for that, he wouldn't.
"Good afternoon, then." A sweet smile graced her face as she stomped down on his foot again, harder. Then she turned and flounced away.
He made an amused face at Jonas. "I think she likes me."
"In my cabin, Gray."
Gray gritted his teeth and followed Joss down the hatch. Whether he liked being Gray's half brother or not, Joss was damn lucky right now that he was. Gray wouldn't have suffered that supercilious command for any bond weaker than blood.
"You gave me your word, Gray."
"Did I? And what word was that?"
Joss tossed his hat on the wood-framed bed and stripped off his greatcoat with agitated movements. "You know damn well what I mean. You said you wouldn't pursue Miss Turner. No ~ Tessa Dare

Tis I whom children love the best; / My wealth is all for them; / For them is set each glossy cup / Upon each sturdy stem. ~ Cicely Mary Barker

The war had taught us so many things: how to spin wool and weave cloth; how to fashion our own shoes from old saddle leather and sturdy canvas; how to plow fields and mend fences. Now it had taught us to kill, and how to protect ourselves from the consequences of those killings with a grim purposefulness that would have been unimaginable even a year before. ~ C.S. Harris

I used to think this heroic: my sturdy, stable dad, capable of anything. But now I realize that he's just drawn to dying, helpless things. The unsaveables.
Like Mom.
Maybe, like me. ~ Kate Ellison

It will be hard James but you come from sturdy peasant stock men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity You come from a long line of great poets some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said "The very time I thought I was lost My dungeon shook and my chains fell off." You know and I know that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you James and Godspeed. ~ James Baldwin

Explore the world with an open mind, a sturdy carry-on, and clothes that don't wrinkle! ~ Madeleine K. Albright

Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth. ~ Norman Mailer

The key to every man is his thought. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I would break a lot of cymbals. You whack the cymbals hard enough, and they will crack in half. Drums are not actually as sturdy as they look. They're actually somewhat fragile instruments. ~ Damien Chazelle

Our children need strong families raising them with sturdy virtues, not to be smothered in the cold arms of the state. ~ Margaret Thatcher

With sturdy shoulders, space stands opposing all its weight to nothingness. Where space is, there is being. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

With his pewter-colored locks and sturdy jaw, Graham Seymour was the archetypal British civil servant, a man who'd been born, bred, and educated to lead. He was handsome, but not too; he was tall, but not remarkably so. He made others feel inferior, especially Americans. ~ Daniel Silva

I'm 190 pounds of rock hard muscle, underneath 40 pounds of sturdy protective fat. ~ John Swartzwelder

How strange and abandoned and unsettled I am. Like a snowdome paper weight that's been shaken. There's a blizzard in my bubble. Everything in my world that was steady and sure and sturdy has been shaken out of place, and it's now drifting and swirling back down in a confetti of debris. (p30) ~ Craig Silvey

A sturdy, hardened sinner shall advance to the utmost pitch of impiety, with less reluctance than he took the first step while his conscience was yet vigilant and tender. ~ Francis Atterbury

The Czech Republic, severed from its old Slovak half, sits in apparent landlocked contentment, inside the European Union but outside the troubled Euro Zone, set into the new Continental mosaic like one of the small sturdy paving stones, just a few inches square, that form the sidewalks under the visitor's ambling feet. ~ Thomas Mallon

Lesson to you Ann, is that a man, however much he lives under the illusion, is never in control. A woman holds the whip that slaps the horse's rump, my dear. And here is another lesson for you to chew on. Men are like barrels of wine in Sir Hammersmith's basement. Strong, sturdy and inviting on the outside, whereas on the inside completely empty. ~ Anya Wylde

I once knew a woman who liked to imagine Love in the guise of a sturdy dog, one that would always chase down the stick after it was thrown and return with his ears flopping around happily. Completely loyal, completely unconditional. And I laughed at her, because even I knew that love is not like that. Love is a delicate thing that needs to be cosseted and protected. Love is not robust and love is not unyeilding. Love can crumble under a few harsh words, or be tossed away with a handful of careless actions. Love isn't a steadfast dog at all; love is more like a pygmy mouse lemur. ~ Andrew Davidson

It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a state in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation. ~ Winston Churchill

You don't want the children to know how afraid / you are. You want to be sure their hold on life / is steady, sturdy. Were mothers and fathers / always this anxious, holding the ringing / receiver close to the ear: / 'Why don't they answer where could they be? ~ Gail Mazur

I didn't know what to say. I knew I had a big choice to make. I could let it all go and try to love him, try to trust him, try to make something lasting and good. He obviously had strong feelings for me or about me. And he wasn't being so bad right now. We could build something sturdy, beautiful. Or I could try to make a dash for the door by crawling under the dining room table.

There was a good chance that he would kill me later either way. ~ Alexandra Kleeman

The Stoics define wisdom to be conducted by reason, and folly nothing else but the being hurried by passion, lest our life should otherwise have been too dull and inactive, that creator, who out of clay first tempered and made us up, put into the composition of our humanity more than a pound of passions to an ounce of reason; and reason he confined within the narrow cells of the brain, whereas he left passions the whole body to
range in.
Farther, he set up two sturdy champions to stand
perpetually on guard, that reason might make no assault,
surprise, nor inroad ; anger, which keeps its station in
the fortress of the heart ; and lust, which like the signs
Virgo and Scorpio, rules the appetites and passions. ~ Desiderius Erasmus

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a story they tell, about a girl dared by her peers to venture to a local graveyard after dark. This was her folly: when they told her that standing on someone's grave at night would cause the inhabitant to reach up and pull her under, she scoffed. Scoffing is the first mistake a woman can make.

I will show you, she said.

Pride is the second mistake.

They gave her a knife to stick into the frosty earth, as a way of proving her presence and her theory.

She went to that graveyard. Some storytellers say that she picked the grave at random. I believe she selected a very old one, her choice tinged by self-doubt and the latent belief that if she were wrong, the intact muscle and flesh of a newly dead corpse would be more dangerous than one centuries gone.

She knelt on the grave and plunged the blade deep. As she stood to run she found she couldn't escape. Something was clutching at her clothes. She cried out and fell down.

When morning came, her friends arrived at the cemetery. They found her dead on the grave, the blade pinning the sturdy wool of her skirt to the ground. Dead of fright or exposure, would it matter when the parents arrived? She was not wrong, but it didn't matter any more. Afterwards, everyone believed that she had wished to die, even though she had died proving that she could live.

As it turns out, being right was the third, and worst, mistake. ~ Carmen Maria Machado

It was a good, sturdy chair of Dark Fae construction, with interlocking parts that could be disassembled for easier transportation. It bore his weight and size well. He approved.

"I have a lap that requires a faerie's presence," he remarked to the room in general.

Niniane's tired face lightened. ~ Thea Harrison

In foreign policy, a modest acceptance of fate will often lead to discipline rather than indifference. The realization that we cannot always have our way is the basis of a mature outlook that rests on an ancient sensibility, for tragedy is not the triumph of evil over good so much as triumph of one good over another that causes suffering. Awareness of that fact leads to a sturdy morality grounded in fear as well as in hope. The moral benefits of fear bring us to two English philosophers who, like Machiavelli, have for centuries disturbed people of goodwill: Hobbes and Malthus. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

The victims of injustice in our world do not need our spasms of passion; they need our long obedience in the same direction - our legs and lungs of endurance; And we need sturdy stores of joy. ~ Gary Haugen

Don't wear those trousers with that shirt. What are you thinking?"
"I'm going to a bust, not a party."
"That's no reason not to look your best. Let's see, what's the well-dressed cop wearing these days to take down a major terrorist organization? You can't go wrong with basic black."
"Is this a joke?" she asked as he selected another shirt.
"Good fashion sense is never a joke." He handed her the shirt, slid a finger down the dent in her chin. "But it's good to see you smile again, Lieutenant. Oh, and wear the black boots, not the brown."
"I don't have any black boots."
He reached in, pulled out a pair of sturdy black leather. "You do now. ~ J.D. Robb

Punctuation! We knew it was holy. Every sentence we cherished was sturdy and Biblical in its form, carved somehow by hand-dragged implement or slapped onto sheets by an inky key. For sentences were sculptural, were we the only ones who understood? Sentences were bodies, too, as horny as the flesh-envelopes we wore around the house all day. Erotically enjambed in our loft bed, Clea patrolled my utterances for subject, verb, predicate, as a chef in a five-star kitchen would minister a recipe, insuring that a soufflé or sourdough would rise. A good brave sentence ("I can hardly bear your heel at my nape without roaring") might jolly Clea to instant climax. We'd rise from the bed giggling, clutching for glasses of cold water that sat in pools of their own sweat on bedside tables. The sentences had liberated our higher orgasms, nothing to sneeze at. Similarly, we were also sure that sentences of the right quality could end this hideous endless war, if only certain standards were adopted at the higher levels. They never would be. All the media trumpeted the Administration's lousy grammar. ~ Jonathan Lethem

People rely on intelligence to solve problems, and they are naturally baffled when comprehension proves impotent to effect emotional change. To the neocortical brain, rich in the power of abstractions, understanding makes all the difference, but it doesn't count for much in the neural systems that evolved before understanding existed. Ideas bounce like so many peas off the sturdy incomprehension of the limbic and reptilian brains. The dogged implicitness of emotional knowledge, its relentless unreasoning force, prevents logic from granting salvation just as it precludes self-help books from helping. The sheer volume and variety of self-help paraphernalia testify at once to the vastness of the appetite they address and their inability to satisfy it. (118) ~ Thomas Lewis

We still leave unblotted in the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of successive ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. This is no fiction. ~ Charles Dickens

And they tramped off to the forests with sturdy youths bearing guitars, twang-twang! ~ D.H. Lawrence

Rows and rows of books lined the shelves and I let my eyes linger on the sturdy spines, thinking how human books were, so full of ideas and images, worlds imagined, worlds perceived; full of fingerprints and sudden laughter and the sighs of readers, too. It was humbling to consider all these authors, struggling with this word or that phrase, recording their thoughts for people they'd never meet. In that same way, the detritus of the boxes was humbling - receipts, jotted notes, photos with no inscriptions, all of it once held together by the fabric of lives now finished, gone. ~ Kim Edwards

Wear your new boots." He passed her the clothes. "They'll work well with that, and with the coat as well."
"What new boots?" Her eyebrows drew together as he took them off a shelf. "And where did they come from?"
"The boot elves, I assume."
"The boot elves are going to be pissed when they're dinged and scuffed inside a week."
"Oh, I think they're more tolerant than that."
"Those elves keep this up I'm going to need a bigger closet."
But she dressed as advised, then sat to pull on the boots while Roarke programmed breakfast for two.
They slid on like
as Peabody might say
butter. "Okay." She stood, took some strides. "They're great. Sturdy
I could definitely kick some teeth in with these."
"The elves had that as top priority. ~ J.D. Robb

What had they done to Bogrov? What had they done to this sturdy sailor, to draw this childish whimpering from his throat? Had Arlova whimpered in the same way when she was dragged along the corridor? Rubashov sat up and leant his forehead against the wall behind which No. 402 slept; he was afraid he was going to be sick again. Up till now, he had never imagined Arlova's death in such detail. It had always been for him an abstract occurrence; it had left him with a feeling of strong uneasiness, but he had never doubted the logical rightness of his behaviour. Now, in the nausea which turned his stomach and drove the wet perspiration from his forehead, his past mode of thought seemed lunacy. The whimpering of Bogrov unbalanced the logical equation. Up till now Arlova had been a factor in this equation, a small factor compared to what was at stake. But the equation no longer stood. The vision of Arlova's legs in their high-heeled shoes trailing along the corridor upset the mathematical equilibrium. The unimportant factor had grown to the immeasurable, the absolute; Bogrov's whining, the inhuman sound of the voice which had called out his name, the hollow beat of the drumming, filled his ears; they smothered the thin voice of reason, covered it as the surf covers the gurgling of the drowning. ~ Arthur Koestler

A brick is a duplicate. It is a physical copy of the idea for a brick. And what's the big idea? A brick represents unity, a notion of hey, let's build something together. Like a house, for example. And after you help me build my house, I'll use a leftover brick and smash you over the skull so that not only will I not have to pay you for your labor, but I won't have to pay the butcher for meat, because with your sturdy body, I'm sure I'll have enough food to feed my family for a year. ~ Jarod Kintz

Positive emotions and mental states may make people more resilient to stress, like sturdy tree branches that bend but don't break when battered by a storm ~ Melanie Greenberg

It's a good sign but rare instance when, in a relationship, you find that the more you learn about the other person, the more you continue to desire them. A sturdy bond delights in that degree of youthful intrigue. Love loves its youth. ~ Criss Jami

I missed the good old days when phones were sturdy enough to be pounded for emphasis. ~ Kathy Bryson

So many stories lived behind my eyes. I carried the people I hurt, the lies I told, my sick relationship with food, wherever I went. My mind was rarely grounded in the moment. My past was heavy and constant; my thoughts wouldn't leave me alone. But when I was with the shelter dogs, I didn't have anything to hide. Sometimes what existed behind my eyes fell away. I wasn't bulimic or unlovable or fat or a liar. I was a part of life again. I was an observer, and to more than just the dark cyclical patterns of the mind - here was the strong, sturdy presence of another - the breath moving in and out of Angel's chest, the beating of her heart, the force of life moving through her and through me. ~ Shannon Kopp

Laura also thought that the law had done a great deal to spoil Henry. It had changed his natural sturdy stupidity into a browbeating indifference to other people's point of view. He seemed to consider himself briefed by his Creator to turn into ridicule the opinions of those who disagreed with him, and to attribute dishonesty, idiocy, or a base motive to every one who supported a better case than he. ~ Sylvia Townsend Warner

The real question is: How sturdy and solid is the floor our civilization stands on? How many lives with no prospects, shattered and senseless, can it bear the weight of before it cracks somewhere or other, splits at the joints? ~ Christa Wolf

(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs. ~ Robert Frost

True wisdom, laboring to expound, heareth others readily;
False wisdom, sturdy to deny, closeth up her mind to argument. ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper

Some people have remarkably sturdy illusions. ~ Stephen King

Ah, snug lie those that slumber Beneath Conviction's roof. Their floors are sturdy lumber, Their windows weatherproof. But I sleep cold forever And cold sleep all my kind, For I was born to shiver In the draft from an open mind. ~ Phyllis McGinley

I think the low emotional moments happen for every author. This is the time to find a sturdy mental ballast & realize self-doubt storms pass--you know, the same way hurricanes do. ~ Rebecca Taylor

Ethan filled his gaze with her, so feminine and fine, with glimmers dancing across her dress and little crystal things sparkling in her hair.
Despite her outward delicacy, there was something remarkably sturdy about her, an unyielding toughness he admired more than she would have believed. The life she'd chosen had come with the never-ending obligation to demonstrate what a woman was and was not, and what a woman could be. People would allow her no room for mistakes or ordinary human frailty. God knew she endured it all far better than Ethan would have. ~ Lisa Kleypas

That did it. With his masculine pride completely trampled beneath her sturdy and practical heel, Jack made a vow. The moment this ends, I am going straight up to London to cut a swath through Society that will ensure my place in history alongside Casanova and every other great rake. There won't be a woman's heart safe from my charms. ~ Elizabeth Boyle

I had to nurture those doubts as if they were tiny, sickly kittens, until eventually they became sturdy, healthy grievances, with their own cat doors, which allowed them to wander in and out of our conversation at will. ~ Nick Hornby

Wildcat fights for den or prey;
Watch for tracks and stay away.
Bollusk trample, charge, and kick;
Climb a sturdy tree or cliff."

She broke off as Payne leaned over and said in a stage whisper to one of the girls, "I don't think she's remembering it right. The real verse is, 'Bollusk charge and like to trample; climb, or be a flat soil sample. ~ Tara K. Harper

People just don't understand how many men it takes to build one good man. Next time you're in Manhattan and you see one of those mighty skyscrapers going up, pay attention to how many men are engaged in the enterprise. It takes just as many men to build a sturdy man, son, as it does to build a tower. ~ J.R. Moehringer

I have a cottage near Aldeburgh, and from there it's a sturdy two-mile walk across farmland to an empty beach, where I collect hag stones and run around with the dog. I'm a keen walker, and I love Suffolk's big skies. ~ Diana Quick

Look at the way people have swung through Communism, Toryism, Liberalism -- in vast blocks. In my father's boyhood you were either a Liberal or a Conservative in England, and there you stuck, and in America you were a sturdy individualist Democrat or Republican from the cradle to the grave. But now the Voice does it -- the pervading voice. And just now
it's come to a point when a Voice -- putting it straight and clear. Straight and clear... ~ H.G.Wells

Rue carried her mother's parasol, which was too ugly to match any of her outfits, but was more sturdy than any of her fashionable ones. This one, felt Rue, could really cause damage to a noggin if applied with enough enthusiasm. Somehow this made her feel more secure about life in general. ~ Gail Carriger

Give it your all. Give it away. Your desires are being held in the hand of the cosmos with incredibly sturdy care. Life is not testing you. She is rooting for you. ~ Danielle LaPorte

"It's me," whispered a familiar voice.
"Der - "
Thwack. He stumbled, Liz behind him, a sturdy branch raised.
"Liz, it's - "
She hit him again, a home-run swing between the shoulders, and he went down with an oomph and an oath. She recognized the voice - or the curse - and leaned over, getting a look at him.
(Liz) "Whoops."
(Simon) "I'd say he deserved that, always sneaking up on people." ~ Kelley Armstrong

When you intervene on behalf of your child, your child becomes the victim. You're expressing the message 'You're incapable, you're not sturdy enough to resolve this yourself, you need me to come in and take care of this for you.'" You are, in essence, disempowering your child. ~ Julie Lythcott-Haims

They thought back on the tales that the soldier had told. They remembered Hazel, the gentle Bethlehem donkey, who used the last of her strength helping those who needed her. They remembered the donkey who stood on the mountain and accepted suffering so that others would not know pain. They remembered the donkey with a hundred names, the sturdy friend of Jack who proved that the most humble being can have the most courageous heart. They gazed at the soldier, who said, 'I fear that John will be sorry he gave the silver donkey to me. The silver donkey belongs to the trustworthy and the brave. ~ Sonya Hartnett

The Bible tells you that real peace is found in resting in the wisdom of the One who holds all of your "what-ifs" and "if-onlys" in his loving hands. Isaiah captures this well with these comforting words: "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you" (Isa. 26:3). Real, sturdy, lasting peace, peace that doesn't rise and fall with circumstances, isn't to be found in picking apart your life until you have understood all of the components. You will never understand it all because God, for your good and his glory, keeps some of it shrouded in mystery. So peace is found only in trust, trust of the One who is in careful control of all the things that tend to rob you of your peace. ~ Paul David Tripp

Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. ~ Homer

Duncan kept his hand on Violet's and talked to her about terrible concerts he had attended back when the Quagmire parents were alive, and she was happy to hear his stories. Isadora began working on a poem about libraries and showed Klaus what she had written in her notebook, and Klaus was happy to offer suggestions. And Sunny snuggled down in Violet's lap and chewed on the armrest of her seat, happy to bite something that was so sturdy. ~ Lemony Snicket

The only sensible approach to disease and insect control, I think, is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment. ~ Masanobu Fukuoka

Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don't be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man's definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers - your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and damned rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off. ~ James Baldwin