Sylvere Wood Quotes

The heart is willing, the head is willing but the body's had enough. ~ Keith Wood

I thought my Beatles LPs sounded pretty good on a record player, but that was before I had heard a CD. ~ Alastair Wood

I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this? ~ Haruki Murakami

Can I borrow your phone?"
There's no hesitation.
"No." I sigh through my nose.
"Look. I totally butchered the last call. I don't want Jonah not knowing how much I love him if I go and die tonight or something."
Karl leans back against the wood paneled wall.
"Then don't die."

Lyons, Heather (2013-11-03). A Matter of Truth (Fate Series Book 3) (p. 144). Cerulean Books. Kindle Edition. ~ Heather Lyons

Grindstone III. The Shadow IV. Calm in Storm V. The Wood-Sawyer VI. ~ Charles Dickens

Euro currency to dissolve due to sovereign debt crisis," the talking heads grimly proclaimed. ~ L. Todd Wood

There is absolutely nothing to be gained from sleeping with one strange woman after another. It just tires you out and makes you disgusted with yourself. ~ Haruki Murakami

When chess masters err, ordinary wood pushers tend to derive a measure of satisfaction, if not actual glee. ~ Israel Albert Horowitz

In How Fiction Works, James Wood says,

A great deal of nonsense is written every day about characters in fiction - from the side of those who believe too much in character and from the side of those who believe too little. Those who believe too much have an iron set of prejudices about what characters are: we should get to "know" them; . . . they should "grow" and "develop"; and they should be nice. So they should be pretty much like us.
Wood is correct, in part, but the ongoing question of character likability leaves the impression that what we're looking for in fiction is an ideal world where people behave in ideal ways. The question suggests that characters should be reflections not of us, but of our better selves.
Wood also says, "There is nothing harder than the creation of fictional character." I can attest to this difficulty, though with perhaps less hyperbole. I have, indeed, found several other tasks harder over the years. Regardless, characters are hard to create because we need to develop people who are interesting enough to hold a reader's attention. We need to ensure that they are some measure of credible. We need to make them distinct from ourselves (and, in the best of all words, from those in our lives, unless of course there is a need to settle scores). Somehow they need to be well developed enough to carry a plot, or carry a narrative without a plot, or endure the tribulations we writers tend to throw at them with alacrity. It's no wonde ~ Roxane Gay

Scattered with poppies, the golden-green waves of the cornfields faded. The red sun seemed to tip one end of a pair of scales below the horizon, and simultaneously to lift an orange moon at the other. Only two days off the full, it rose behind a wood, swiftly losing its flush as it floated up, until the wheat loomed out of the twilight like a metallic and prickly sea. ~ Patrick Leigh Fermor

Trees for which there is no commercial value are referred to as "weeds" that interfere with commercial harvesting. That's what alders were called until a method to make high-grade paper from them was developed, but you'd never know that alders play an important ecological role. They are the first trees to grow after an opening is cleared in a forest, and they fix nitrogen from the air to fertilize the soil for the later-growing, longer-lived, bigger tree species. Yew trees have tough wood with gnarled branches and were called weeds and burned until a powerful anti-cancer agent was found in their bark. ~ David Suzuki

I live in the country, so I get a fair amount of exercise. We heat our house with wood, so I split wood. We also live on a steep hill, and I have to rake and put in cross-stitches to keep the road from washing out when there's a big rain. ~ Pete Seeger

Frodo: Sam! Wood-Elves! They're going to the harbour beyond the White Towers. To the Grey Havens
Sam: They're leaving Middle-earth.
Frodo: Never to return. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

The thing about families is that you rarely get to choose them since you tend to be born into one and be a part of it. The family, on the other hand, tends to choose you and become a part of you, whether or not you grow to like it or will yourself to want. ~ Tristan Wood

And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. ~ Lewis Carroll

Bright lamplight bounced off golden varnished wood. The suddenly vivid colors of scarves, hats, hair and faces after the gray-green gloom they'd been immersed in all morning dazzled them. The solid warmth of the coal-fired range, dry and hot, pressed against them from the front as the lingering damp embedded in their backs brought forth a final, convulsive shiver. The sights and smells of rich food and aromatic coffee hit them, no longer just a hope in their hollow stomachs. This made them all as if drunk with good fortune and delighted them with sheer, physical pleasure. ~ Antonio Dias

John Colman Wood's The Names of Things is a thoughtful, patient, and ultimately rewarding book. It's about, among many other things, the connections human beings make, that in spite of everything, we will always make. To quote from the book, 'What he saw in the people was what the old anthropologists called communitas. It wasn't that the people sang and moved. It was their singing and moving together' Singing and moving together, Wood has found a way to express this profound and beautiful idea through fiction. ~ Peter Orner

Howard had a pine display case, fastened by fake leather straps and stained to look like walnut. Inside, on fake velvet, were cheap gold-plated earrings and pendants of semiprecious stones. He opened this case for haggard country wives when their husbands were off chopping trees or reaping the back acres. He showed them the same half-dozen pieces every year the last time he came around, when he thought, This is the season - preserving done, woodpile high, north wind up and getting cold, night showing up earlier every day, dark and ice pressing down from the north, down on the raw wood of their cabins, on the rough-cut rafters that sag and sometimes snap from the weight of the dark and the ice, burying families in their sleep, the dark and the ice and sometimes the red in the sky through trees: the heartbreak of a cold sun. He thought, Buy the pendant, sneak it into your hand from the folds of your dress and let the low light of the fire lap at it late at night as you wait for the roof to give out or your will to snap and the ice to be too thick to chop through with the ax as you stand in your husband's boots on the frozen lake at midnight, the dry hack of the blade on ice so tiny under the wheeling and frozen stars, the soundproof lid of heaven, that your husband would never stir from his sleep in the cabin across the ice, would never hear and come running, half-frozen, in only his union suit, to save you from chopping a hole in the ice and sliding into it as if it were a blu ~ Paul Harding

All who wish to hand down to their children that happy republican system bequeathed to them by their revolutionary fathers, must now take their stand against this consolidating, corrupting money power, and put it down, or their children will become hewers of wood and drawers of water to this aristocratic ragocracy. ~ Andrew Jackson

It's a quiet place, so people talk quietly," said Naoko. She made a neat pile of fish bones at the edge of her plate and dabbed at her mouth with a handkerchief. "There's no need to raise your voice here. You don't have to convince anybody of anything, and you don't have to attract anyone's attention. ~ Haruki Murakami

When we hear a Mozart piano concerto today, we're most likely to hear the piano part played on a modern concert grand. In the hands of a professional pianist, such a piano can bury the strings and the winds and hold its own against the brass. But Mozart wasn't composing for a nine-foot-long, thousand-pound piano; he was composing for a five-and-a-half-foot-long, hundred-and-fifty-pound piano built from balsa wood and dental floss. ~ Robert Greenberg

Every guy got morning wood. It didn't mean anything that Chris had woken with a boner that morning while camping. And the fact that he'd been rubbing said boner against Peter's hip? Well… Chris hadn't been awake enough to know what he'd been doing. ~ Daisy Harris

All of it was ashes now: the smooth wood, the soft edges, the memory of his hands. ~ Lois Lowry

Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls. ~ John Quincy Adams

It is what it is"... and "You can only eat an elephant one bite at a time, and sometimes when life throws things at you that are pretty challanging and it is really big elephant, envision it to be chocolate covered to make the bites much more yummy and easier to swallow." :) ~ T.L. Wood

Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture. ~ Ed Wood

Outsong in the Jungle

[Baloo:] For the sake of him who showed
One wise Frog the Jungle-Road,
Keep the Law the Man-Pack make
For thy blind old Baloo's sake!
Clean or tainted, hot or stale,
Hold it as it were the Trail,
Through the day and through the night,
Questing neither left nor right.
For the sake of him who loves
Thee beyond all else that moves,
When thy Pack would make thee pain,
Say: "Tabaqui sings again."
When thy Pack would work thee ill,
Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill."
When the knife is drawn to slay,
Keep the Law and go thy way.
(Root and honey, palm and spathe,
Guard a cub from harm and scathe!)

Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,
Jungle-Favour go with thee!

[Kaa:] Anger is the egg of Fear--
Only lidless eyes see clear.
Cobra-poison none may leech--
Even so with Cobra-speech.
Open talk shall call to thee
Strength, whose mate is Courtesy.
Send no lunge beyond thy length.
Lend no rotten bough thy strength.
Gauge thy gape with buck or goat,
Lest thine eye should choke thy throat.
After gorging, wouldst thou sleep ?
Look thy den be hid and deep,
Lest a wrong, by thee forgot,
Draw thy killer to the spot.
East and West and North and South,
Wash thy hide and close thy mouth.
(Pit and rift and blue pool-brim,
Middle-Jungle follow him!)

Wood and Water, W ~ Rudyard Kipling

He woke whimpering in the night and the man held him. Shh, he said. Shh. It's okay.
I had a bad dream.
I know.
Should I tell you what it was?
If you want to.
I had this penguin that you wound up and it would waddle and flap its flippers. And we were in that house that we used to live in and it came around the corner but nobody had wound it up and it was really scary.
Okay.
It was a lot scarier in the dream.
I know. Dreams can be really scary.
Why did I have that scary dream?
I dont know. But it's okay now. I'm going to put some wood on the fire. You go to sleep.
The boy didnt answer. Then he said: The winder wasnt turning. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Most often they speak according to their kind – the deep rumble of oak, the whisper of the birch, or the singsong chant of the alder.
The evergreen stands of pine have voices sharp as needles.
But the forest can speak as one, when it must. When the trees so choose, they think with one mind. When there is danger, especially, they speak in one voice of a thousand echoes.
I hate it when they do this. For the forest mind is always right, and will hear no argument. ~ Maryrose Wood

My sickness is a lot worse than you think: it has far deeper roots. And that's why I want you to go on ahead of me if you can. Don't wait for me. Sleep with other girls if you want to. Don't let thoughts of me hold you back. Just do what you want to do. Otherwise, I might end up taking you with me, and that is the one thing I don't want to do. I don't want to interfere with your life. I don't want to interfere with anybody's life. Like I said before, I want you to come to see me every once in a while, and always remember me. That's all I want. ~ Haruki Murakami

We didn't have a drill so he would burn the holes through the wood with a metal rod that he heated up in a fire. Can you imagine an ordinary crew doing that? ~ Marc Singer

Winter descended on Erl and gripped the forest, holding the small twigs stiff and still: in the valley it silenced the stream; and in the fields of the oxen the grass was brittle as earthenware, and the breath of the beasts went up like the smoke of encampments. And Orion still went to the woods whenever Oth would take him, and sometimes he went with Threl. When he went with Oth the wood was full of the glamour of the beasts that Oth hunted, and the splendour of the great stags seemed to haunt the gloom of far hollows; but when he went with Threl a mystery haunted the wood, so that one could not say what creature might not appear, nor what haunted and hid by every enormous bole. What beasts there were in the wood even Threl did not know: many kinds fell to his subtlety, but who knew if these were all? ~ Lord Dunsany

It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of old wood to take, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees. ~ Richard Whately

REVISITING THE LIST
1. Kiss Estelle
Okay, at least I've met her. She thinks I'm a creep. And that's withought her knowing I've read her diaries. Unless we somehow fall over, exactly aligned, lip to lip, and gravity causes the pressure, or we find ourselves in a darkened room and through a series of Shakespearian ID muddles she thinks she's kissing someone else, I can't say how this is ever going to happen. ~ Fiona Wood

philip closed his eyes and stood upright and immobile in the middle of the silet room. In that moment the roar of battle, the creaking wood of the siege engines, the furious galloping of the horses all faded away; he simply stood stock still and listened to his son's breathing. ~ Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Everything I do is a direct creation of my hands, whether it is made in wood, plaster or clay. ~ Eva Zeisel

She sighs, and then gives me this look. It's new and I don't like it. Sort of, Two roads diverged in a wood, mine is normal, but I hope you can be happy for me even though you are Miss Havisham. ~ Anna Breslaw

(When asked "Was the model for Midori (a character in Norwegian Wood) modeled after your wife?")
I showed your message to my wife. She got mad and yelled: "What would make them think I was the model for Midori?!" She told me to fix the misunderstanding immediately, so that's why I'm writing this reply now. Please stop causing problems in my household. Thank you. ~ Haruki Murakami

Somehow they fail to see that for someone aggravated by depression, self-help will be useless, indeed, it is precisely the self that needs to be forgotten. ~ Geoffrey Wood

They prefer a God of an altogether softer flavor. Nothing too extreme. Complaisance, not magnanimity. They do not think upon the "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God." They prefer to think in terms of "God liking them." That's the God they've conjured for themselves. ~ Geoffrey Wood

The Heimlich maneuver works on house pets. My pit bull was choking on his dinner. I squeezed his stomach and the neighbor's cat shot right out. ~ Scott Wood

I got to go to New York Comic-Con. I've never been and I've heard it's crazy, so I'd love to see it. To be quite honest, I'd like for people to want us to be there, too. I'm hoping. I'm knocking on wood, so we'll see. ~ Steven Yeun

Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and then sent back. Once, they took off and were flying in formation when the control tower summoned them down. The more it rained, the worse they suffered. The worse they suffered, the more they prayed that it would continue raining. All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars. All through the day, they looked at the bomb line on the big, wobbling easel map of Italy that blew over in the wind and was dragged in under the awning of the intelligence tent every time the rain began. The bomb line was a scarlet band of narrow satin ribbon that delineated the forward most position of the Allied ground forces in every sector of the Italian mainland.

For hours they stared relentlessly at the scarlet ribbon on the map and hated it because it would not move up high enough to encompass the city.

When night fell, they congregated in the darkness with flashlights, continuing their macabre vigil at the bomb line in brooding entreaty as though hoping to move the ribbon up by the collective weight of their sullen prayers. "I really can't believe it," Clevinger exclaimed to Yossarian in a voice rising and falling in protest and wonder. "It's a complete reversion to primitive superstition. They're confusing cause and effect. It makes as much sense as knocking on wood or crossing your fingers. They really believe that we wouldn't have to fly that mission tomorrow if someon ~ Joseph Heller

I'd rather hop freights around the country and cook my food out of tin cans over wood fires, than be rich and have a home or work. ~ Jack Kerouac

.... only little boys throw away someone like you. A man knows that a woman like you has to be earned. Your love, your trust, are worth any amount of work, any amount of effort. ~ C.C. Wood

Gratitude is one of those things that cannot be bought. It must be born with men, or else all the obligations in the world will not create it. ~ E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl Of Halifax

Barbara Parkins was so rude and petty all of the time. I just found her behavior to be so silly. ~ Lana Wood

Wood burns. Roots nourish. Branches shelter. Leaves heal." The words had become her mantra, her way of reigniting her courage when it started to falter. My life depends on a tree, she thought wryly as she cinched her pack. ~ Teresa Tsalaky

She did her best but like Uncle E says, sometimes your best just ain't good enough. ~ Patricia Wood