The Collected Stories Quotes

The beautiful dream of young love that ventures only on half-measures, that desires and dares not ask, promises and does not give.

He was homeless in the noble sense of those who, like the Vikings and pirates of beauty, have collected in their intellectual raids all that is most precious in many great cities. He was close to all the arts in the manner of a dilettante, but stronger than his love for them was his sublime disdain to serve them.

Destiny does not always need the powerful prelude of a sudden violent blow to shake a heart beyond recovery.

Memory is always a bond and every loving memory is a bond twice over. ~ Stefan Zweig

I wish - I wish instead of just recommending these books, I could set them down at your doorstep. The collected stories of John Updike, the second volume of T.C. Boyle's collected stories, and Stanley Crouch's book about the rise and times of our genius saxophone player Charlie Parker. These are deep books, books that you can get lost in. ~ Alan Cheuse

Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness. ~ C. G. Jung

Where are you staying tonight?" Caleb asked reasonably. Lily had no idea; her mind had been so full of Caleb that she hadn't thought about that. Nor had she collected her savings from the bank in Tylerville or bought the equipment she would need to wash clothes. Although the schoolmaster's cottage was a cozy little place, it would require some preparation before she could move in. "You could spend the night with me," he suggested when Lily didn't answer his question. "I've been staying in the barracks, but I have a house." She glared at him. "Forget I said anything," Caleb sighed. And he turned the buggy toward the Tibbet place. ~ Linda Lael Miller

I seem to be ready for work, my materials are collected, yet the work doesn't get done! Nothing is done! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The soul aches as much as the body.there are days when all the scars , all the old and long forgotten hurts" lights up", just like old injuries before winter or bones hurt from blows you have collected in a long life and only forgotten for a short time. in those days you are bad tempered and absorbed in yourself, in your soul whose wound reopened only to remind you that nothing is lost,nothing vanishes, least of all pains and bad memories.they just whither away for a while, withdraw into an unknown depth, just like they will this time and you will put them behind you, until the next time. ~ Alija Izetbegovic

WOMEN ON THEIR OWN RUN in Alice's family. This dawns on her with the unkindness of a heart attack and she sits up in bed to get a closer look at her thoughts, which have collected above her in the dark. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

The forbidden cabinet. The forbidden fruit. That fruit is - a volume, a huge blue-lilac volume with a gold inscription slantwise: Collected Works of A.S. Pushkin. I read the fat Pushkin in the cabinet with my nose in the book and on the shelf, almost in darkness and almost right up against it and even a little bit suffocated by his weight that came right into the throat, and almost blinded by the nearness of the tiny letters. I read Pushkin right into the chest and right into the brain. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Isabelle's moods began to vary with alarming speed. She wondered if she had always been this way and simply failed to notice. No. Good heavens, you noticed something like this: driving to the A&P feeling collected and cozy, as though your clothes fit around you exactly right, and by the time you drove home feeling completely undone, because as you walked across the parking lot the smell of the grocery bag you held in your arms mingled with the smell of spring and produced some scrape of longing in your heart. Frankly, it was exhausting. Because for all those moments of hope that God was near, of some bursting, some widening seeming to take place in her heart, Isabelle had other moments that could only be described as rage. (117) ~ Elizabeth Strout

I write poetry not for publication but merely to kill time. Airplanes are a good place to write poetry and then throw it away. My collected works are mostly on the vomit bags of Lufthansa. ~ Wayne Kelly

What an abundant harvest has been collected in autumn! The earth has now fulfilled its design for this year, and is going to repose for a short time. Thus nature is continually employed during the greatest part of the year: even in her rest she is active: and in silence prepares a new creation. ~ Christoph Christian Sturm

An even more important philosophical contact was with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who began as my pupil and ended as my supplanter at both Oxford and Cambridge. He had intended to become an engineer and had gone to Manchester for that purpose. The training for an engineer required mathematics, and he was thus led to interest in the foundations of mathematics. He inquired at Manchester whether there was such a subject and whether anybody worked at it. They told him about me, and so he came to Cambridge. He was queer, and his notions seemed to me odd, so that for a whole term I could not make up my mind whether he was a man of genius or merely an eccentric. At the end of his first term at Cambridge he came to me and said: "Will you please tell me whether I am a complete idiot or not?" I replied, "My dear fellow, I don't know. Why are you asking me?" He said, "Because, if I am a complete idiot, I shall become an aeronaut; but, if not, I shall become a philosopher." I told him to write me something during the vacation on some philosophical subject and I would then tell him whether he was complete idiot or not. At the beginning of the following term he brought me the fulfillment of this suggestion. After reading only one sentence, I said to him: "No, you must not become an aeronaut." And he didn't.
The collected papers of Bertrand Russell: Last Philosophical Testament ~ Bertrand Russell

They've destroyed small farms and local economies across the globe. And now, they own patents on the seeds themselves. Those seeds represent the knowledge, labor, and heritage of all of humanity, and their DNA is now owned by Monsanto and ConAgra and ADM. They're the oligarchs of food, the pater familias of life itself. "The ownership, genetic code, practices and profits of agriculture are being collected in fewer and fewer hands - hands that have no dirt under the fingernails," writes George Pyle. ~ Anonymous

Work"


I laid telephone line, then cable when it came along. I pulled T-shirts off a silk-screen press. I cleaned offices in buildings thirty-five floors high. I filed the metal edges of grease fryers hot off a welding line. I humped sod in townhouse complexes, and when it became grass I cut it. I sorted mail. I washed police cars, and then I changed their oil. I installed remotes on gas meters so a truck could simply drive down the street and get the readings. I set posts and put up fences, wood and chain link. Five a.m. at the racetrack, I walked hot horses after their exercise. I bathed them. I mopped and swept aisles in a grocery store. Eventually, I stocked shelves. I corrected errors on mortgage papers for a bank. I racked tables in a pool hall. There's more I'm not telling you.

All of this befell me as an adult. As a kid, I cut neighbors' lawns and delivered newspapers, and I watched after little kids while their parents worked. I painted houses. I collected frogs from ponds and sold them to pet stores. And so on.

At fifteen, I went for a busboy position at an all-night diner, but they told me to come back when I turned sixteen. I did.

Sometimes, on top of one, I took a second job. It gave me just enough time to sleep between the two. And eat.

My father worked, harder than I did, and then he died. Then I worked harder. My mother said, "You're the man of the house now." I was seventeen. She kept an eye on me, t ~ Michael Stigman

Meanwhile, as we read, two little girls slept as if couched on zephyrs on the south side of the parlor floor, in a room that had bunny wallpaper ... and a bookcase crammed with the collected Beatrix Potter. Snow White was in a youth bed and Rose Red was in a crib, and next to them was the little blue and white guest room that one of them would have one day. Because I recognize emotions only in retrospect, I didn't know that I was happy. As always, there was something nagging at my mind's corners. But I did know that I had all that it is proper in this world to wish for. ~ Mary Cantwell

Interesting people were her favorite hobby. She collected them: the type who did gay things late at night and smoked cigarettes in mixed company, those would have most scandalized her own mother. ~ Anna Godbersen

I am often talking about the ideas collected in Normal Life in contexts that are not academic, or that are full of people who are not primarily engaging as theorists or theory-readers. Being able to make ideas visual, especially critical ideas about movements that can be difficult to hear because of attachments we have to certain national narratives, or because of ways that we see ourselves, is especially useful. ~ Dean Spade

Quiet descended on her, calm, content, as her needle, drawing the silk smoothly to its gentle pause, collected the green folds together and attached them, very lightly, to the belt. So on a summer's day waves collect, overbalance, and fall; collect and fall; and the whole world seems to be saying "that is all" more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too, That is all. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall. And the body alone listens to the passing bee; the wave breaking; the dog barking, far away barking and barking. ~ Virginia Woolf

Ethnography literally means 'a portrait of a people.' An ethnography is a written description of a particular culture - the customs, beliefs, and behavior - based on information collected through fieldwork. ~ Marvin Harris

I trust and use RakEM for my private messages and calls. Other messengers collected metadata about who I messaged, when and where - RakEM does not collect metadata, encrypts local files, and uses the strongest end-to-end encryption around. ~ John McAfee

Without any prior warning, the ground suddenly gave way. He had a falling sensation and he lost all sense of reality. There weren't four colleagues sitting in front of him in an office, it wasn't a murder case, it wasn't a warm summer's day in Oslo, no-one called Rakel and Oleg ever existed. He knew that this brief panic attack could be followed by others and he hung on by his fingertips. Harry lifted his mug of coffee and drank slowly while he collected himself. He determined that when he heard the sound of the mug being put down on the desk he would be back, here, in this reality. ~ Jo Nesbo

His mother collected medicines, rather in the way a boy collects coins or seals or arrowheads; one or two genuine pieces, along with a whole load of junk. ~ K.J. Parker

Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair. ~ Nicole Krauss

We are a collage of our interests, our influences, our inspirations, all the fragmentary impressions we've collected by being alive and awake to the world. Who we are is simply a finely-curated catalogue of those. ~ Maria Popova

The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what merchant, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer of the United States? ~ Thomas Jefferson

You wish to hear the origin story?" "Uh, yes." I passed him the bottle. "Very well." He drank, handing it to Jack, starting another round. "A goddess of magic devised a contest to the death for select mortals. She invited deities of other realms to send a representative from their most prestigious house, all youths. Each one bore their god's emblem upon his or her right hand." My heart raced . . . I had been one of those youths. "These players would fight inside Tar Ro, a sacred realm as large as a thousand kingdoms, harvesting their victims' emblems; only the player who'd collected them all would leave Tar Ro alive. Naturally, the gods cheated, gifting their own representative with superhuman abilities, making them more than mortal. Secret abilities. That's why we're called Arcana." "Hail Tar Ro," I murmured. "The High Priestess told me that." "An old-fashioned greeting. She's quite knowledgeable about the games. Very respectful of the old ways. ~ Kresley Cole

The launch of Google+ apps sends a powerful signal - the personalized web has begun. What this means is that the way information is structured and accessed will turn on the individual, or rather their personal profile which is a composite of all the data collected on the basis of what they have searched for and shared. ~ Simon Mainwaring

And though various organizations in America and England collected money and sent food parcels to these refugees, nothing was ever received by the Spanish. ~ Martha Gellhorn

Do I need to ask if you had anything to do with what I'm not wearing?" She wouldn't freak out. She would remain calm, cool, collected. Oh shit, she didn't remember a damn thing about falling into bed.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Pepper, but I left you standing at the door. What you did after you closed it - in my face, I might add - is all on you." He reached for the cover, but she grabbed it and pulled it tight around her body. "But I'm flattered that you include me in your fantasies."

"Why has no one murdered you by now? Or at least taken a soap-filled sock to you?" That was a fun thought. Jaime on the floor, all tied-up and being flogged. "No, on second thought, murder is better. It's more permanent."

"My, but aren't you bloodthirsty in the morning." He leaned against the post at the foot of the bed, his eyes traveling her body, belying his stated disinterest. "Do you always sleep naked? Or just when you're drunk?"

"You got me drunk, you prick, while you were drinking water. You poured enough gin into me to fill a damn bathtub."

"You could have said no at any time."

"That's what your mother should have said the night you were conceived. ~ Mercy Celeste

I preserve things that are significant to me. Only time will determine what is important in the long term. But something can be rediscovered only if someone has collected and preserved it. ~ Michael Feinstein

Cloud-flying requires practice, even if you have every modern instrument, and unless you keep calm and collected you will get into trouble after you have been inside a really thick one for a few minutes. In the very early days of aviation, 1912 to be correct, I emerged from a cloud upside down, much to my discomfort, as I didn't know how to get right way up again. I found out somehow, or I wouldn't be writing this. ~ Charles Rumney Samson

In the murky puddle of rainwater collected at the entrance of the tomb, I spied my own reflection,a dark, hatted figure against a pewter sky. ~ Linda Lappin

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

I am waiting impatiently for the day when beleaguered, like-minded academics can order James Wolcott's collected essays for their classes. ~ Camille Paglia

It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fish- the blood-ends the cook had collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, an investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. It was another perfect day - soft, mild and clear; and Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs. ~ Rudyard Kipling

You? You can't believe this? I'm the one who has to go to Artemis to save your ass. She was freaking out over Zarek, now how the hell do I explain to her that Mr. Cool-Calm-and-Collected was doing his impression of Spider Man in a bar loaded with tourists and ended up as the main feature on Tokyo news as what's wrong with American culture? Question. How many rules did you break in less than a minute? (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

She had come to analysis because she was, as she put it, "ruining her children." ... "But you are so frustrating," she said. "I want you to take something away from me, and you keep giving it back." And what, I asked, was that "something" she wanted to give away? "The pain. The crazy," she said. She said there was a little shrine, somewhere in the north of Brazil. The land was dry, the town impossibly poor, but people would travel for hundreds of miles to get there, to leave candles, gifts, and ex- voto offerings thanking the saint for answered prayers, for healing, for having rescued them from distress. "I bring you my worries. I bring you my tears. I bring you the dreams I have. I want to leave them here. I want to hang them on your wall and return home healed. But everything I give to you, you give back. You say, like you just said, 'What is this "something" you want to give away?' " Years later I looked it up, the shrine. There were many like the one my Brazilian patient had described. One of them was a kind of cave or grotto, where pilgrims would leave little body parts carved from wood or wax: a foot, a breast, a head. From time to time the priest collected the wax objects and melted them down, making candles to be sold to other pilgrims. The walls and ceiling of the shrine were black with candle smoke and crowded with these suspended offerings. I think now that my Brazilian patient managed at least to give that away, the conjured image of a blackened shrine, hung with ~ DeSales Harrison