Tidied Up In A Way Quotes

Zero wasnt worried, " When you spend your whole life living in a shole", he said, "the only way you can go is up. ~ Louis Sachar

In a way it was like a bunch of guys in a game. They were falling behind every minute that passed, but they had lost interest in the score. It was as if they were just a ton behind and had given up on the win. And maybe deep inside they didn't want to peep the score, maybe they knew what was happening but just didn't want to think about it anymore. I could understand that. I had played enough ball in my life, and was deep enough into my game to know I had to be in the hunt for a win or I could lose who I was. And once I lost who I was, my inner me, then all the CDs and all the iPods and all the bling in the world wasn't going to make it right.
The strange thing was that everybody was feeling the same thing, that there was a huge game going on, and that the game was going to decide who was a winner and who lost. But so many of the brothers on the corner didn't have a play...I could feel for them because they were just like me in most ways, thinking that everybody should have a number, everybody should have the same playing time, and knowing it wasn't going to happen. ~ Walter Dean Myers

So, now he's driving around with a little boy and a dead girl..." he prompted.
"Yeah, a dead girl in the back seat and a catatonic little boy up front." She paused. "He did pretty good considering."
She took a deep breath. "And right after he crossed the Sabine River, just outside of Orange, I sat up."
"You what? You just sat up?" He almost laughed at the image it conjured. This shouldn't be funny, not even in a gallows humor sort of way.
"Yeah. I don't think I remembered, just at that moment, that I'd been dead. I sat up, saw them and said, 'Why is Dylan in the front seat?'"
"First thing back from the dead, you start bitching? ~ Kinsey W. Holley

Everyone was fucked up in their own way; as before, it was a mark of one's individuality. ~ Colson Whitehead

Grey was here."
He hadn't known, that was obvious from the way his eyes widened. "You lie."
Rose chuckled. "I saw him. I spoke to him. He said he came to see me. And then he ran out of here as though the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels."
Archer shook his head, an expression of disbelief on his face. "They tend to do that when Hades freezes over." Then he offered her a grin. "He braved being seen in public just to come here and see you?"
"He was watching from a balcony. I wouldn't have known he was here if the fortune teller hadn't told me."
His brows shot up. "And there's a story for another time. Look, Lady Rose, I know he's frustrating as all get-out, but you cannot expect Grey to change years of behavior in a week. You have to be patient-like waves lapping at a stone."
That was so very easily said. He wasn't the one being pressured to find a husband. He wasn't the one who felt as though everything she wanted was just out of reach. "You know, I suddenly find myself very interested in Lady Monteforte's literary tastes. Shall I make the introductions?"
"I will hang your puppy if you do not."
Rose grinned. He truly was the most charming of rascals. "How very fortunate for me then, that I do not own a puppy."
"For shame. Every young lady should have a puppy."
Rose made the introductions, and Archer wasted no time in asking Lady Monteforte if she cared to dance. For a moment it seemed the lady might decline, but then Ros ~ Kathryn Smith

I sat down in a booth, and the waitress shoved a menu in front of me. There wasn't anything on it that sounded good, and anyway, one look at her and my stomach turned flipflops ... Every goddamned restaurant I go to, it's always the same way ... They'll have some old bag on the payroll - I figure they keep her locked up in the mop closet until they see me coming. And they'll doll her up in the dirtiest goddamned apron they can find and smear that crappy red polish all over her fingernails, and everything about her is smeary and sloppy and smelly. And she's the dame that always waits on me. ~ Jim Thompson

I'll take another stab at talking to her."
"If you can't find a way, get Cooper to do it. You know how he loves controlling things. I'm sure he'll want to help."
"True, but once he starts meddling, he won't stop. I don't need him giving me pointers for the rest of my relationship with Lark."
"Lark," my mother said, testing out the name. "She had such a sweet smile. I could look at that smile for the rest of my life. Yes, go kick fate in the balls and get me a daughter."
"You have a daughter."
"A new one, I meant. Preferably one who likes to visit more than Anna."
Grinning at the thought of my alpha chick sister, I finished my juice and stood up. "I'll focus on a first date then worry about getting you a more compliant daughter. ~ Bijou Hunter

They slid closer to the berserker, their guns up and ready. "Alexander," the one on the left said. "Where's your monster?" He didn't say it in a contemptuous way-merely a curious one.
"I am my monster, baby." she told him. "And my monster is me." She grinned and winked at him. "So you're looking at it. ~ Laken Cane

(I) "My soul spoke to me in a whisper, urgently and alarmingly: 'Words, words, do not make too many words. Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness, and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are all completely mired in madness?'"
(2) Jung's soul: "There are hellish webs of words, only words ... Be tentative with words, value them ... for you are the first who gets snared in them. For words have meanings. With words you pull up the underworld. Word, the paltriest and mightiest. In words the emptiness and the fullness flow together. Hence the word is an image of the God."
(3) "But if the word is a symbol, it means everything. When the way enters death and we are surrounded by rot and horror, the way rises in the darkness and leaves the mouth as the saving symbol, the word. ~ C. G. Jung

Eight Bells: Robert J. Kane '55D died June 3, 2017, in Palm Harbor, Florida. He came to MMA by way of Boston College. Bob or "Killer," as he was affectionately known, was an independent and eccentric soul, enjoying the freedom of life. After a career at sea as an Officer in the U.S. Navy and in the Merchant Marine he retired to an adventurous single life living with his two dogs in a mobile home, which had originally been a "Yellow School Bus." He loved watching the races at Daytona, Florida, telling stories about his interesting deeds about flying groceries to exotic Caribbean Islands, and misdeeds with mysterious ladies he had known. For years he spent his summers touring Canada and his winters appreciating the more temperate weather at Fort De Soto in St. Petersburg, Florida…. Enjoying life in the shadow of the Sunshine Bridge, Bob had an artistic flare, a positive attitude and a quick sense of humor. Not having a family, few people were aware that he became crippled by a hip replacement operation gone bad at the Bay Pines VA Hospital. His condition became so bad that he could hardly get around, but he remained in good spirits until he suffered a totally debilitating stroke. For the past 6 years Bob spent his time at various Florida Assisted Living Facilities, Nursing Homes and Palliative Care Hospitals. His end came when he finally wound up as a terminal patient at the Hospice Facility in Palm Harbor, Florida. Bob was 86 years old when he passed. He will be missed…. ~ Hank Bracker

I never suspected you had a sense of humor," she mused aloud, studying his face as if he were a fascinating puzzle to be figured out. "See? Hardly ten minutes into the night and I am already learning fabulous things about you."
"Imagine what will happen in an hour," he said.
"That sounded suspiciously liberal to me," she rejoined slyly, reaching to wind her arms around his neck. "Did I mention that you look like you just stepped off a pirate ship? This outfit is very . . . roguish."
"Roguish?"
"'Roguish' is a word from the English language," she lectured. "It means . . . to be like a rogue. In your case, to be in the style of a rogue. Roguish."
"I know what it means, Neliss. I do not believe I have ever heard myself described in such a way before. I shall have to take your word on that." He reached up to push back some of the heavy fall of her hair. "You always wear dresses like this, and almost never bind your hair. Do not take this as a complaint, but I was wondering why that is."
"I like dresses. I never quite took to the idea of skirts above the ankle. I guess I am an old-fashioned eighteenth-century girl."
"I see. And just when, exactly, should I begin to look for those pigs that will be flying by?"
"You know, you sit there and accuse me of having a smart mouth?"
"Well, you were wondering what part of you was going to show up in me," he rejoined.
"Oh. Ha ha. Your stellar wit has charmed me straight to my toes," was her dr ~ Jacquelyn Frank

This obsession is a curious thing. Sometimes wonder about the merits of devoting so much of myself to a singular climbing objective. Much of the time it beats me down, leaves me hanging my head in despair. But then there are the moments that bring me to life. When excitement wells up inside my chest in a way that doesn't happen in every day life. Today my fingertips were cracked and bleeding. I made no progress despite great conditions. Now I am on the ground and can hardly contain my excitement to get back on the wall. It's a crazy rollercoaster and I owe my family and partners a great deal for encouraging me through it all. ~ Tommy Caldwell

It isn't like the rest of the country - it is like a nation itself - more tolerant than the rest in a curious way. Littleness gets swallowed up here. All the viciousness that makes other cities vicious is sucked up and absorbed in New York. ~ John Steinbeck

We need to be clear that there is no such thing as giving up one's privilege to be 'outside' the system. ONE IS ALWAYS IN THE SYSTEM. The only question is whether one is part of the system in a way which challenges or strengthens the status quo. Privilege is not something I take and which I therefore have the option of not taking. It is something that society gives me and unless I change the institutions which give it to me, they will continue to give it, and I will continue to have it, however noble and egalitarian my intentions. ~ Harry Brod

One of the peculiar ironies of being a human self in the Cosmos: A stranger approaching you in the street will in a second's glance see you whole, size you up, place you in a way in which you cannot and never will, even though you have spent a lifetime with yourself, live in the Century of the Self, and therefore ought to know yourself best of all. ~ Walker Percy

Clear writing is universal. People talk about writing down to an audience or writing up to an audience; I think that's nonsense. If you write in a way that is clear, transparent, and elegant, it will reach everyone. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I don't know how long I had been sniffing and snorting there on my broken bunk (and I didn't care who heard me) when I became aware of furtive little sounds from the corridor. Nothing loud--no more than a slight scrape--then a soft grunt of surprise.
I looked up, saw nothing in the darkness.
A voice whispered, "Countess?"
A voice I recognized. "Azmus!"
"It is I," he whispered. "Quickly--before they figure out about the doors."
"What?"
"I've been shadowing this place for two days, trying to figure a way in," he said as he eased the door open. "There must be something going on. The outer door wasn't locked tonight, and neither is this one."
"Shevraeth," I croaked.
"What?"
"Marquis of Shevraeth. Was here gloating at me. The guard must have expected him to lock it, since the grand Marquis sent the fellow away," I muttered as I got shakily to my feet. "And he--being an aristocrat, and above mundane things--probably assumed the guard would lock it. Uh! Sorry, I just can't walk--"
At once Azmus sprang to my side. Together we moved out of the corridor, me hating myself for not even thinking of trying the door--except, how could I have gotten anywhere on my own?
At the end of the corridor a long shape lay still on the ground. Unconscious or dead, I didn't know, and I wasn't going to check. I just hoped it wasn't one of the nice guards.
Outside it was raining in earnest, which made visibility difficult for our enemies as well ~ Sherwood Smith

….two slate-colored gravestones settled at a slant into the lower corner of the field beside the lane. She could not read the names engraved on them, but she knew what they were. Joseph Watson, 1820-1891, and James Watson, son of Joseph and Hannah Watson, 1844-1863. The grave of Hannah Watson lay beside her husband's and because she had died last, she had no marker, unless the pine tree growing there might count as one. To-morrow two men would drive up and leave a basket of flowers and a flag for Joseph because he had fought in the Civil War, and for James because he had died on his way home from it, but they would not have anything for Hannah because she had only identified her son James one hot summer day on the platform of North Derwich Station, and raised all the food her husband ate for twenty years as he sat in a chair in her kitchen, and done washings for Mrs. Hale to buy monuments for them at the end. But the flowers would die in the boxes; even if Jen found time to go down and set out the pansy plants in the ground, stray cows were sure to eat them off before the summer was over; and the Forrest children would take the flags to play with. Nothing would interfere with the tree. ~ Gladys Hasty Carroll

The girl really needed to let him go.
This was the voyage Gray went respectable. And it was off to a very bad start.
It was all her fault-this delicate wisp of a governess, with that porcelain complexion and her big, round eyes tilting up at him like Wedgwood teacups. She looked as if she might break if he breathed on her wrong, and those eyes keep beseeching him, imploring him, making demands. Please, rescue me from this pawing brute. Please, take me on your ship and away to Tortola. Please, strip me out of this revolting gown and initiate me in the pleasure of the flesh right here on the barstool.
Well, innocent miss that she was, she might have lacked words to voice the third quite that way. But worldly man that he was, Gray cold interpret the silent petition quite clearly. He only wished he could discourage his body's instinctive, affirmative response.
He didn't know what to do with the girl. He ought to do the respectable thing, seeing as how this voyage marked the beginning of his respectable career. But Miss Turner had him pegged. He was no kind of gentleman, and damned if he knew the respectable thing. Allowing a young, unmarried, winsome lady to travel unaccompanied probably wasn't it. But then, if he refused her, who was to say she wouldn't end up in an even worse situation? The chit couldn't handle herself for five minutes in a tavern. Was he truly going to turn her loose on the Gravesend quay? ~ Tessa Dare

Am I meant to not reply to Josh From HR's texts, do you think? Hell, maybe I am. Maybe he liked me the way I like Adam The Tick Boxer. Maybe every single person in London is hoping for a text from someone else, and we're all connected in a chain of waiting. I wonder who's at the top of the chain?
Robert's phone beeps. He picks it up, reads the text, makes a derisive little snorting sound and puts it back on the table without replying.
That answers that question, then. ~ Gemma Burgess

I don't like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that's not really true of life, particularly of people in power. ~ Sarah Hall

Addicts don't like when you tell them they are all the same. Of course not. Who would? But to me, addicts are like actresses, who all audition for the same role in a horror movie. It doesn't matter how they got to the audition. It doesn't matter how or where they grew up, once they get to the audition, all the actresses act in the same way and read the same lines. They all become the same character. ~ Oliver Markus

One hand planted on the top rail, slick from a recent rain, I swung my legs sideways, up and over. Home free.
Until my bottom foot clipped the post, and I spun as if caught in a crocodile's death roll.
Good news? The spongy forest floor cushioned my fall.
Bad news? Momentum slammed my torso into a tree trunk. Couldn't breathe.
But good news again. I'd rolled under a fat, bushy pine, which, along with the fading twilight, concealed my position. I heard the beast fly overhead in pursuit, taking out a few treetops on its way by.
Yeah, that was my plan all along. Man, I'm good. Except my body. It hurt. ~ A&E Kirk

You know, there are good reasons to learn how to read. Poetry isn't one of them. I mean, so what if two roads go two ways in a wood? So what? Who cares if it made all that big a difference? What difference? And why should I have to guess what the difference is? Isn't that what he's supposed to say?
Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up? ~ Gary D. Schmidt

World's freakiest bloodsucker, right here," I went on. "And you know what? If it makes some of you uncomfortable, too bad. If it makes some of you so uncomfortable you want to start shit with me about it, step right up and see if I don't eat the hell out of you next!"
I'd meant that last part as a threat, but somewhere in my impassioned declaration of independence from hiding what I was, I'd neglected to think through my phrasing. I saw Bones raise a brow, a muffled snicker broke out from Ian, and then Vlad laughed loud and hearty.
"With that sort of invitation, Reaper, you might want to suggest the line form to your right."
"That's not ... I meant eat them in a bad way," I sputtered. ~ Jeaniene Frost

God's relationship with man does not work in a way in which man stumbles and then God has to drop what he is doing in order to lift him up; rather, man stumbles so that God can lift him up. Hence it is utterly impossible to truly diminish his glory. ~ Criss Jami

Are you there, God? It's me, Layla. I know I just jerked off some guy who is not even my boyfriend in the bathroom of this crappy, brown house. But if you could find a way to kill me quickly and painlessly within the next ten seconds, I promise to never touch another penis again. Well, I'll be dead, so, I guess I promise not to whore it up in heaven. Which, of course is where you'll be sending me, right? I mean I'd hate to think you'd deny me an eternity behind your pearly gates just because of one impetuous handjob. Thank you. Sincerely, Layla Warren. Amen. ~ T. Torrest

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We'll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds. ~ Wislawa Symborsky

Many will argue that there is nothing remotely spiritual in combat. Consider this. Mystical or religious experiences have four common components: constant awareness of one's own inevitable death, total focus on the present moment, the valuing of other people's lives above one's own, and being part of a larger religious community such as the Sangha, ummah, or church. All four of these exist in combat. The big difference is that the mystic sees heaven and the warrior sees hell. Whether combat is the dark side of the same version, or only something equivalent in intensity, I simply don't know. I do know that at the age of fifteen I had a mystical experience that scared the hell out of me and both it and combat put me into a different relationship with ordinary life and eternity.

Most of us, including me, would prefer to think of a sacred space as some light-filled wonderous place where we can feel good and find a way to shore up our psyches against death. We don't want to think that something as ugly and brutal as combat could be involved in any way with the spiritual. However, would any practicing Christian say that Calvary Hill was not a sacred space? ~ Karl Marlantes

There's a distinction between telling death reinforce the meaning of life and "living every day as if it were your last." No one can really live that way with out getting locked up. We cannot realistically approach each day as if it were our last. What would you do if you found out you were going to die at the end of this day? Would you do into work? Would you sit and pray_ Would you run around in a panic trying to get out last batch of letters or e-mails? Giving stuff away? I don't know exactly what any of us would do under such circumstances, but it's my guess that it would not feel too comfortable. It would make me feel utterly dejected. I wouldn't know where to turn first. ~ Allan Hamilton

Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good about having had her as a mother. ~ Anne Lamott

House-watching is an art. You have to develop a way of seeing how a building sits in its landscape or streetscape. You have to discover how much room it takes up in the world, how much of the world it displaces. ~ Edmund De Waal

As we were getting Mia's things ready for her discharge, her nurse started to excuse herself to get a wheelchair to transport Mia to the car. Instantly, Mia said, "I'm not riding in a wheelchair."
"Yes, you are, Mia. It's a hospital regulation," I said, believing that was true.
"Mom," she protested, "they said I'm supposed to walk as much as possible. I'm walking to the car."
I saw a certain look in Mia's eyes as she made this announcement, the look that says "I am going to push hard for this." I knew she was determined, and I would fight a losing battle to try to talk her out of it.
"I'm walking out of here," she said again.
I guess the medical staff noticed that look too because they allowed her to try to walk, with a nurse close beside her. Seeing that little girl limp her way down the hall, holding Reed's hand, was one of the proudest moments of my life. I was absolutely amazed by her spunk and determination. I grabbed my cell phone from my purse and snapped a picture.
She is such a fighter, I thought as Jase and I followed her. Visually, she looked roughed up, as though she had been through about fifteen rounds in a boxing match. But in that moment, she showed a level of toughness and resilience I have never seen in a child.
Remembering the information we were told on that first visit to ICI when Mia was seventeen days old, that she would need physical therapy to help her walk again after this surgery, I thanked God as I watched our da ~ Missy Robertson

Anxiety, in short, is a conscious feeling. It can arise in a bottom-up way, driven by activity in defensive circuits or from higher processes that conceptualize worry, either about an uncertain future or about existence itself. ~ Joseph E. Ledoux

Monsoon Love is a love story with a few comic twists. The idea for this story came to me when I went into the local town of Pokhara with a friend to buy his son a birthday present. We had just arrived at the shops when a heavy down pour began, and as we had arrived on his motorbike and didn't have raincoats or umbrellas so we had to wait for the rain to stop. We were standing under a awning watching the street while we waited, and I noticed this very beautiful young woman walk past me dressed in a t-shirt and jeans with the cuffs rolled half up her legs, but the way she held her umbrella made it impossible to see her face, though with the nice body she had her face must have been just as lovely. Then I though, imagine some guy stuck working in an office, and seeing a view like that every day of the same woman, and falling in love with her despite not seeing her face. ~ Andrew James Pritchard

One's mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do. ~ A. C. Benson

People are growing up in the slack flicker of a pale light which lacks the concentrated burn of a candle flame or oil wick or the bulb of a gooseneck desk lamp: a pale, wavering, oblong shimmer, emitting incessant noise, which is to real knowledge or discourse what the manic or weepy protestations of a drunk are to responsible speech. Drunks do have a way of holding an audience, though, and so does the shimmery ill-focused oblong screen. ~ Adrienne Rich

And you probably also know that when you look out of an aeroplane window and see the world shrink like that, you can't help but think about the whole of your life, from the beginning until where you are now, and everyone you've ever known. And you'll know that thinking about those things makes you feel grateful to God for providing them, and angry with Him for not helping you to understand them better, and so you end up in a terrible muddle and needing to talk to a priest. I decided I wouldn't sit in the window seat on the way back. I don't know how these jet-set people who have to fly once or twice a year cope, I really don't. ~ Nick Hornby

Cause and effect are linked that way in a twisted form. You can pile up all the worlds you like and the twisting will never be undone. ~ Haruki Murakami

Maybe happiness is just finding the right people at the right time."
"But how do you find them?"
...
"But say you do find the right people - how do you love them without smothering them? ... How do you not suffocate them with all the love you've built up in their absence?"
"You don't. And that's the whole point - it works in a way it just wouldn't with other people. ~ Simon Van Booy

People have said over the years that the reason I did not give up my seat was because I was tired. I did not think of being physically tired. My feet were not hurting. I was tired in a different way. I was tired of seeing so many men treated as boys and not called by their proper names or titles. I was tired of seeing children and women mistreated and disrespected because of the color of their skin. I was tired of Jim Crow laws, of legally enforced racial segregation. ~ Rosa Parks

Don't worry about me. I'll heal. Come on-"
"Where are we going?" Luce asked.
"The sun's about to rise," Daniel said, taking a small leather satchel from Phil. "And I figure you must be starving."
Luce hadn't realized it, but she was.
"I thought we could steal a moment before anyone else shows up."
There was a sheer, narrow path from the plateau that led to a small ledge down from where they'd landed. They picked their way down the jagged mountain, hand in hand, and when it was too steep for walking, Daniel coasted, always flying very low to the ground, his wings tucked close to his sides.
"Don't want to alarm the hikers," he explained. "Most places on Earth, people aren't willing to let themselves see miracles, angels. If they catch a glimpse of us flying by, they convince themselves their eyes were playing tricks on them. But in a place like this-"
"People can see miracles," Luce finished for him. "They want to."
"Right. And seeing leads to wonder."
"And wonder leads to-"
"Trouble." Daniel laughed a little.
Luce couldn't help grinning, enjoying that at least for a little while, Daniel was her miracle alone. ~ Lauren Kate