Toward Quotes

Recognizing that something is wrong is the first step toward changing the world. ~ Shane Claiborne

At the most embryonic state, the tendency toward the fullness of actualization is already latent. ~ Francois Jullien

There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to "feed upon opinion" when her own soul had invited her. ~ Kate Chopin

What is seen and called the picture is what remains - an evidence. Even as one travels in painting toward a state of 'unfreedom' where only certain things can happen, unaccountably the unknown and free must appear. ~ Philip Guston

What do you think?" he asked, his voice deep and commanding.
I eyed him. "Impressive, but too much."
He leaned toward me, the blue eyes smoky with a promise I was shure he could fulfill. I tried not to think of the bedroom.
"Too much?"
"Yes. I like the menace. It's very masculine, but he looks like he would screw everything in sight and call me 'wench ~ Ilona Andrews

It all happened in a second. The three of them reached Baby at the same time. She lay crumpled down on the dirty sidewalk. Her skirt was over her head, showing her pink panties and her little white legs. Her hands were open - in one there was the prize from the candy and in the other the pocketbook. There was blood all over her hair ribbon and the top of her yellow curls. She was shot in the head and her face was turned down toward the ground. ~ Carson McCullers

Don't hate on someone whose hard work placed them on the road to success, while your envy and ill-intent put you on a path toward failure. ~ Carlos Wallace

So you traded up?" I asked, walking toward the car and opening the door. "Do you treat your relationships in the same way?"
"Yes," Ethan gravely said. "And I spent four hundred years shopping before I met you. ~ Chloe Neill

At about the end of the eighteen minutes and twenty miles, I said: "But suppose I don't find anything before election day?"

The Boss said, "To hell with election day. I can deliver Masters prepaid, special handling. But if it takes ten years, you find it."

We clocked off five miles more, and I said, "But suppose there isn't anything to find."

And the Boss said, "There is always something."

And I said, "Maybe not on the Judge."

And he said, "Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something."

Two miles more, and he said, "And make it stick."

And that was all a good while ago. And Masters is dead now, as dead as a mackerel, but the Boss was right and he went to the Senate. And Callahan is not dead but he has wished he were, no doubt, for he used up his luck a long time back and being dead was not part of it. And Adam Stanton is dead now, too, who used to go fishing with me and who lay on the sand in the hot sunshine with me and with Anne Stanton. And Judge Irwin is dead, who leaned toward me among the stems of the tall gray marsh grass, in the gray damp wintry dawn, and said, "You ought to have led that duck more, Jack. You got to lead a duck, son." And the Boss is dead, who said to me, "And make it stick."

Little Jackie made it stick, all right. ~ Robert Penn Warren

Tess took a deep breath. 'You are not marrying me for love, Lord Mayne. Nor-as far as I can see-due to any overwhelming feeling of a less...less proper nature.' She could feel color rising into her cheeks.
'Now that's not true,' Mayne said. There was a hint of wicked laughter in his eyes, and his fingers tightened on hers. 'I feel quite improperly toward you.'
Goodness, but he was attractive when he wasn't hedging, when he was being honest. 'Are you not disturbed by the fact that we do not feel warmer emotions for each other?' she asked him.
'I would be disturbed if we /did/ ... I do not wish for a tempestuous marriage, although I am quite certain that there will be sufficient warmth between us.'
'And in your estimation, tempests must accompany love,' she said, raising an eyebrow. ~ Eloisa James

There's nothing to be scared of, right Akhol?"
He said nothing as he stepped toward the rushing water that rolled around a big rock and was swallowed whole by impenetrable darkness.
"Right?" Andrew repeated, his voice swallowed by the sound of rushing water.
Akhol didn't respond again. He tapped a foot above the water before he stepped in and disappeared beneath the surface in one fluid motion. ~ Laura Kreitzer

Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.
We all know that, so why complain? Was it not always thus and will it not always thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives its distinctive mark to a society. Each of us has to his little bit toward transforming this spirit of the times. ~ Albert Einstein

Indeed, this is an important characteristic of the globalization debate: the tendency toward glorifying all things indigenous even when they deserve to be left in the past. ~ Franklin Foer

Next, I'm holding a bag of clothes, being herded toward an open door filled with sunlight. My briefs are still looped around my ankles, so I'm waddling, my erection swinging in front of me like a blind man's cane, and the talent wrangler has the nerve to say, 'Thank you for coming... ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Good evening," he whispered, just a touch too close to her ear to be proper.
She turned toward him with a blush and he finally had the pleasure of seeing the color of her eyes. Jade green. Magnificent. Even if this woman proved to be an unattainable challenge, he'd certainly chosen well.
"G-Good evening," she stammered as she straightened up to smooth the front of the gown that matched those jade eyes perfectly. ~ Jenna Petersen

Some men, as they age, grow kinder. I am not one of those, for I have seen how the cosmere can mistreat the innocent - and that leaves me disinclined toward kindness. Some men, as they age, grow wiser. I am not one of those, for wisdom and I have always been at cross-purposes, and I have yet to learn the tongue in which she speaks. Some men, as they age, grow more cynical. I, fortunately, am not one of those. If I were, the very air would warp around me, sucking in all emotion, leaving only scorn.
Other men...other men, as they age, merely grow stranger. I fear that I am one of those. I am the bones of a foreign species left drying on the plain that was once, long ago, a sea. A curiosity, perhaps a reminder, that all has not always been as it is now. ~ Brandon Sanderson

It is the time to tremendous awakening toward "inquisitiveness" with cross-cultural sharing through technology and inner insights. ~ Pearl Zhu

I love you, Mary, he says, and that is when I let the tears come. The great heaving sobs of terror and pain that shake my body until I can do nothing but grab on to Travis to anchor me to this spot. He pulls me toward him and I curl around his body as I weep. I fall into darkness with his fingers trailing through my har, my cheeks still wet and my body heaving. ~ Carrie Ryan

I couldn't rid myself of the sense that Roy was in danger somehow, that old demons were driving him toward an abyss, and that if only I was a better brother, my intervention would prevent his fall. ~ Barack Obama

Look at your life as an experiment. Make a comprise with all your doubts and fears: For a year or two, do what you can to move toward your ideal scene, in a easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way. See what happens. ~ Mark Allen

Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil ... a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons ... never to truth. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error ... Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in the laboratory. Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of all stability. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Living in Supreme Influence, your language is neutral and/or moving toward your vision rather than moving away. In other words, you speak about what you do want, not about what you don't want. ~ Niurka

My stomach churned. The monster had mimicked Thalia perfectly. If I'd heard that voice in the dark, calling for help, I would've run straight toward it. ~ Rick Riordan

If everybody in the world suddenly decided not to use their credit cards for three days, the whole global economy would be in serious trouble. (Recall how we were all urged to get out our credit cards after 9/11 and get back to shopping.) Which is why so much effort is put toward getting money out of our pockets and keeping it circulating. ~ David Harvey

I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in relgion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is toward happiness ... ~ Dalai Lama XIV

Despite of all my Sunday learnin', toward the bad I kept turning. ~ Merle Haggard

Curiosity allows your unique "owned processes" to draw you toward creative conclusions. ~ Robert Genn

Lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community. If they had only themselves to consider, lovers would not need to marry, but they must think of others and of other things. They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers, pledging themselves to one another "until death," are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could join them. Lovers, then, "die" into their union with one another as a soul "dies" into its union with God. And so here, at the very heart of community life, we find not something to sell as in the public market but this momentous giving. If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing ... ~ Wendell Berry

She went up to his bedroom door and listened to the wildly twanging bed springs as they reached a crescendo as they built toward a finale worthy of Grieg's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King ~ John Kennedy Toole

Control the manner in which a man interprets his world, and you have gone a long way toward controlling his behavior. That is why ideology, an attempt to interpret the condition of man, is always a prominent feature of revolutions, wars, and other circumstances in which individuals are called upon to perform extraordinary action. ~ Stanley Milgram

If you saw her in these moments, you might think she was collecting her thoughts in order to go forward. But I see it another way: Her mind is being overwhelmed by two processes that must simultaneously proceed at full steam. One is to deal with and live in the present world. The other is to re-experience and mourn something that happened long ago. It is as though her lightness pulls her toward heaven, but the extra gravity around her keeps her earthbound. ~ Steve Martin

Summer is a Latvian chicken. We make foolish choices. We think we're young again. We run with outstretched arms toward an object of love and it pecks us and pecks us until we're standing there snot-nosed and teary in the middle of Astor Place and the sun sets fire to our Penguin shirts and all that is left to do is go to our air-conditioned homes and ponder the cruelty of our finest season. ~ Gary Shteyngart

Most loss of life and property has been due to the collapse of antiquated and unsafe structures, mostly of brick and other masonry ... There is progress of California toward building new construction according to earthquake-resistant design. We would have less reason to ask for earthquake prediction if this was universal. ~ Charles Francis Richter

Me," Artemis blurted. "I'm the nut."
Artemis could have sworn the squid winked at him before bringing the five-ton chunk of spacecraft swinging down toward the morsel of meat in its blue shell.
"I'm the nut!" Artemis shouted again, a little hysterically, it must be said. ~ Eoin Colfer

Sometimes, in the throes of a nightmare when unseen powers whirl one over the roofs of strange dead cities toward the grinning chasm of Nis, it is a relief and even a delight to shriek wildly and throw oneself voluntarily along with the hideous vortex of dream-doom into whatever bottomless gulf may yawn. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Very few people are ambitious in the sense of having a specific image of what they want to achieve. Most people's sights are only toward the next run, the next increment of money. ~ Judith M Bardwick

He loved him enough to want to die for hurting him, loved him enough to kill himself slowly for fear of losing him, loved him enough to suffer silently if he thought it was in Boyd's interest. Sin loved Boyd enough to make difficult decisions easily, as if there were no contest; he went toward Boyd as if he hadn't even considered any other choices. ~ Santino Hassell

I'm interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that appears to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom. ~ Jim Morrison

A porpoise sounded twenty yards away from us in an explosion of breath, startling us. . . . Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and a fourth porpoise neared the board and we could feel great secret shapes eyeing us from below. I reached out to touch the back of one, its skin the color of jade, but as I reached the porpoise dove and my hand touched moonlight where the dorsal fin had been cutting through the silken waters. The dolphins had obviously smelled the flood tide of boyhood in the sea and heard the hormones singing in the boy0scented water. None of us spoke as the porpoises circled us. The visitation was something so rare and perfect that we knew by instinct not to speak – and then, as quickly as they had come, the porpoises moved away from us, moved south where there were fish to be hunted.
"Each of us would remember that night floating on the waves all during our lives. It was the year before we went to high school when we were poised on the slippery brink between childhood and adulthood, admiring our own daring as we floated free from the vigilance and approval of adult eyes, ruled only by the indifference of stars and fate. It was the purest moment of freedom and headlong exhilaration that I had ever felt. A wordless covenant was set among us the night of the porpoises. ~ Pat Conroy

We should ask God to help us toward manners. Inner gifts do not find their way to creatures without just respect. ~ Rumi

It isn't enough to pick a path - you must go down it. By doing so, you see things you couldn't possibly see when you started out; you may not like what you see, some of it may be confusing, but at least you will have, as we like to say, "explored the neighborhood." The key point here is that even if you decide you're in the wrong place, there is still time to head toward the right place. ~ Ed Catmull

I wouldn't be a part of anything that had acts of violence toward children. I don't think I would do a horror film, either. That just doesn't sit well on my soul. ~ Kate Winslet

But when you walk through yonder gate," Churchill said, pointing toward the Middle Tower at the end of the causeway, which was visible only as a crenellated cutout in the orange sky, "you'll find yourself in a London you no longer know. The changes wrought by the Fire were nothing. In that London, loyalty and allegiance are subtle and fluxional. 'Tis a chessboard with not only black and white pieces, but others as well, in diverse shades. You're a Bishop, and I'm a Knight, I can tell that much by our shapes, and the changes we have wrought on the board; but by fire-light 'Tis difficult to make out your true shade. ~ Neal Stephenson

If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion. ~ Joseph Brodsky

Why we ask questions: Questions are the basis of human freedom. Our mind, as a part of our self experience, is curious and always challenging that part of us that can think about the essence of things. We interpret our lives all the time - with unconscious deep conceptualization - and these conceptualization raise questions.
Why did I feel the way I felt yesterday when I spoke with X? What is the meaning of my answer? Why I chose to spend time in X's company and not Y's? And how it changed my attitude toward Y?
(Interesting paragraph I translated from the Hebrew edition) ~ Christopher Bollas

But even airplanes heading toward Belgium can work magic, if you have luck and love and Christmas on your side. ~ Katherine Rundell

He strode toward the bathroom door, but Vera launched herself at him like a flying squirrel coasting to another tree. ~ T.S. Joyce

I follow Grandma toward the front of the sanctuary. She and Granddaddy have a spot on the second row that's theirs. See, the first row is for folks who wanna show off. The second row is for folks who wanna show off but wanna act like they're subtler about it. ~ Angie Thomas

She started to scream. She screamed and screamed and screamed. Her vision was numb. There was a window in front of her but it opened into a nothingness like the one yawning from her mouth. Somewhere she could hear a building sound, a wind, huge and wide, rushing out of the void, rushing toward her. The walls, the veils in her head, they tore, they ripped, they collapsed. The wind rushed over his empty voice and the Ada thought with a sudden final clarity--
She has come. She has come for me at last. ~ Akwaeke Emezi

Define excellence vividly, quantitatively. Paint a picture for your most talented employees of what excellence looks like. Keep everyone pushing and pushing toward the right-hand edge of the bell curve. ~ Marcus Buckingham

He was aware, suddenly, of the chill condensing clammily on his skin, the smell of damp cobblestones, of the very air flowing in and out of his lings.
But most of all he was aware of the woman, this woman, his woman, standing so proudly, waiting patiently for him, only him.
He walked toward her and knew with every fiber of his being that he walked to life itself. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

Lapin breaks away from Broadway and picks a path toward Telegraph Hill. Her velocity is steady, even as the landscape rises underneath her; she's the little eccentric that could. ~ Robin Sloan

My mom kind of led me toward acting. She wanted to be an actress when she was younger. That made me interested in it when I was a kid, because she and I are very close. ~ Stephen Colbert

toward him with slumped shoulders. ~ Ayse Kulin

Fore more than a decade - from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s - conservatives systematically and strategically linked opposition to civil rights legislation to calls for law and order, arguing that Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of civil disobedience was a leading cause of crime. Civil rights protests were frequently depicted as criminal rather than political in nature, and federal courts were accused of excessive 'lenience' toward lawlessness, thereby contributing to the spread of crime. ~ Michelle Alexander

My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I have a tendency toward being a micromanager. Which, the bigger the project you're involved in, the harder that becomes. ~ Christine Quinn

I am thirsty, and very susceptible to flattery ... you could talk me into anything ... "
"So much for fighting the good fight," I observed dryly. "He'll have a harem within a week."
Bones watched Juan disappear down the hall, nuzzling the blonde's neck in a manner that didn't speak only of hunger. "He's a fine bloke. He'll learn."
"Learn what?" At least he can't get or pass diseases anymore, I thought. That's one advantage turning Juan into a vampire did for womankind.
Bones put an arm around me as we headed toward the exit of the flesh feast. "He'll learn that many women can satisfy for a short period of time, but when he falls in love, only one will sustain him forever."
I cast him a sideways glance "Are you trying to seduce me?"
His lips curled with promise. "Absolutely. ~ Jeaniene Frost

It's that zombie virus thing that was on the news!" shouted a man in a Starfleet uniform. It was Next Generation command red, but he was running away from the danger, not toward it. Maybe that was how the command crew stayed alive. "They'll eat you if you stay here!" "They ~ Mira Grant

The proper direction of man's thought is not toward the creation of new laws for government, but toward the acceptance of every person's moral dignity. ~ Edmund Yates

Before you go anywhere, Mr. Football Player," Nita said, "I want to know exactly what your intentions are toward my Blue. ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Will gritted his teeth as Will Junior and Nellie continued their debate. He loved his son, but he found him
and many members of hisgeneration
ruthless in their pursuit of money and standing and harsh toward the less fortunate. He had reminded him on many occasions that both the McClanes and their mother's family
the Van der leydens
had at one time been immigrants. As had members of all the city's wealthy families. But Will's lectures made no difference to his son. He was an American. And those getting off the boat at Castle Garden were not. Italian, Irish, Chinese, Polish
nationality made no difference. They were lazy, stupid, and dirty. Their numbers spelled ruin for the country. p. 264 ~ Jennifer Donnelly

Dropping toward the watershed, the sun filled the place with evening light and kindled the windows and the western flanks of cupolas and steeples and many belfries, darkening the eastern walls with shadow; and as we gazed, one of them began to strike the hour and another took up the challenge, followed by a third and soon enormous tonnages of sectarian bronze were tolling their ancient rivalries into the dusk. ~ Patrick Leigh Fermor

I shot through my twenties like a luminous thread through a dark needle, blazing toward my destination: Nowhere. ~ Carrie Fisher

In the world God wills work, marriage, government, and church, and God wills all these, each in its own way, through Christ, toward Christ, and in Christ. God has placed human beings under all these mandates, not only each individual under one or the other, but all people under all four. There can be no retreat, therefore, from a "worldly" into a "spiritual" "realm." The practice of the Christian life can be learned only under these four mandates of God. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The best attitude to receive the Pope's teachings is to understand that he is a religious leader and the essence of his message comes from the Gospel, not from one ideology or another.And so, if our economic systems are not oriented toward the human person but only concerned with profits, he wants to confront the system and change it. This, by the way, is common to all the popes, it comes directly from the so-called social teachings of the church. ~ Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo

It's very difficult to have any faith in the sincerity of the SLORC about stamping out drug production if they find it so easy to forgive a drug baron whom at one time they said they would never, never forgive and would never, never regard as anything but a drug runner. The SLORC is far more aggressive in its attitude toward the National League for Democracy than against drug traffickers. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi

I'm not technical. When I listen to music, I gravitate more toward the sonic aspect of it. The technical stuff of it, I get bored with it. These long solos? OK, already. You know your scales, big deal. I know it, too, but I don't want to do that. ~ Joey Santiago

Even in these first days together, it is very clear that this feeling of mine for the stranger has trumped all the other adventures in my life. It has shuffled everything and everyone else I thought I was moving toward or away from. ~ Marlena De Blasi

Even though brutality used toward the young, by reason of their defenselessness, provoked greater anger and greater pity, it was still true that they were resilient. Was the wind tempered to the shorn lamb? He grimaced. All the lambs were shorn now, and the wind was from the northeast, full of ice and black frost. ~ John Christopher

Toward the end of February 1954, James Beard was at work in his Greenwich Village kitchen doing what he most loved to do: cooking delicious meals. ~ Laura Shapiro

The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older - intelligence and good manners. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

When you accept a leadership role, you take on extra responsibility for your actions toward others. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Stay healthy is not a slippery slope toward unhealthy ~ Hugh Howey

What is it that wells up so suddenly and menacingly under my heart, swallowing the soft air of melancholy? Are you pleased with us, dark night? What is it you conceal under your mantle, that grabs invisibly and powerfully at my soul? A rich balm drips off your fingers from a bundle of poppies. You raise up the heavy wings of the soul – darkly and inexpressibly we are moved. I see an earnest face startled with joy – softly and reverently it inclines toward me, and under endlessly entangled locks
appears the cherished face of our Mother. How poor and childish the light seems to me now − how welcome and
blessed is the day's departure. ~ Novalis

The first step toward spiritual growth is to become aware of your emotions. ~ Gary Zukav

A lot of the heartache and confusion we feel in dating stems from treating dating mainly as practice for marriage (clarity through intimacy), instead of as discernment toward marriage (clarity and then intimacy). ~ Marshall Segal

It was always easy, in open and lonely places, to be visited by Panic wilderness fear, but these are the urban fantods here, that come to get you when you are lost or isolate inside the way time is passing, when there is no more History, no time-travelling capsule to find your way back to, only the lateness and the absence that fill a great railway shed after the capital has been evacuated, and the goat-god's city cousins wait for you at the edges of the light, playing the tunes they've always played, but more audible now, because everything else has gone away or fallen silent. . . barn-swallow souls, fasioned of brown twilight, rise toward the white ceilings. . . the are unique to the Zone, they answer to the new Uncertainty. Ghosts used to be either the likeness of the dead or wraiths of the living. But here in the Zone categories have been blurred badly. The status of the name you miss, love, and search for now has grown ambiguous and remote, but this is even more than the bureaucracy of mass absence- some still live, some have died, but many, many have forgotten which they are. Their likenesses will not serve. Down here are only wrappings left in the light, in the dark: images of the Uncertainty. . ." 3:2 ~ Thomas Pynchon

That was interesting.Who was that?"
Matt looks unhappy. "What?" I ask him.
"You'll talk to that guy,but you won't talk to us anymore?"
"Sorry," I mumble, and climb out of his car. "He's just a friend.Thanks for the ride."
Matt gets out,too. Cherrie starts to follow,but he throws her a sharp look. "So what does that mean?" he calls out. "We aren't friends anymore? You're bailing on us?"
I trudge toward the house. "I'm tired, Matt.I'm going to bed."
He follows anyway.I dig out my house key,but he grabs my wrist to stop me from opening the door. "Listen,I know you don't want to talk about it,but I just have this one thing to say before you go in there and cry yourself to sleep-"
"Matt,please-"
"Toph isn't a nice guy.He's never been a nice guy. I don't know what you ever saw in him.He talks back to everyone, he's completely unreliable, he wears those stupid fake clothes-"
"Why are you telling me this?" I'm crying again.I pull my wrist from his grasp.
"I know you didn't like me as much as I liked you. I know you would have rather been with him,and I dealth with that a long time ago.I'm over it."
The shame is overwhelming. Even though I knew Matt was aware that I liked Toph,it's awful to hear him say it aloud.
"But I'm still your friend." He's exasperated. "And I'm sick of seeing you waste your energy on that jerk. You've spent all this time afraid to talk about what was going on between you two,but if you'd bothered to ju ~ Stephanie Perkins

Run everything on a generator," Haskel said. "Got to keep it a certain temperature for the stuff I carry. Not too cold. Not too hot. There's shit in here, weather got wrong, it'd go off and blow our asses all the way to Mineola. Maybe out in the goddamned Gulf."
"I don't like to travel that far unless I got plane tickets and a steward in my lap," Leonard said.
Haskel cut an eye toward Leonard. "You mean stewardess, don't you?"
"I don't think so," Leonard said, and let Haskel churn that one over. ~ Joe R. Lansdale

My lord?"
Nick turned at the tentative, feminine voice, to find two young women standing nearby, watching him eagerly. Nick spoke, wary.
"Yes? "
"We - " one of them began to speak, then stopped, uncertain. The other nudged her toward him.
"Yes?"
"We are fans."
Nick blinked. "Of?"
"Of yours."
"Of mine."
"Indeed!" The second girl smiled broadly and stepped closer, holding out what looked suspiciously like -
Nick swore under his breath.
"Would you be willing to autograph our magazine? "
Nick held up a hand. "I would, girls, but you've got the wrong brother." He pointed to Gabriel. "That is Lord Nicholas."
Rock snorted as the two shifted their attention to the Marquess of Ralston, a dazzlingly handsome copy of their prey, and tittered their excitement.
Gabriel instantly eased into his role, turning a brilliant smile on the girls. "I would be happy to autograph your magazine." He took the journal and the pen they proffered and said, "You know, I must confess, this is the first time I've ever drawn the attention of ladies when in the company of my brother. Ralston has always been considered the more handsome of us."
"No!" the girls protested.
Nick rolled his eyes.
"Indeed. Ask anyone. They'll tell you it's the marquess who is the best specimen. Surely you've heard that." He looked up at them with a winning smile. "You can admit it, girls. My feelings shan't be hurt."
Gabriel h ~ Sarah MacLean

Once your baby arrives, the world is no more the same than you are. Because from our very bodies we add to the collective human destiny. Our deepest urge is always toward life, to wholeness and well being. ~ Claire Fontaine

It is clear that something is seriously lacking in the way we humans are going about things. But what is it that we lack? The fundamental problem, I believe, is that at every level we are giving too much attention to the external, material aspects of life while neglecting moral ethics and inner values. By inner values, I mean the qualities that we all appreciate in others, and toward which we all have a natural instinct, bequeathed by our biological nature as animals that survive and thrive only in an environment of concern, affection, and warm-heartedness-or in a single word, compassion. The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being. This is the spiritual principle from which all other positive inner value emerge. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

Ian's strong hands closed around her. "Are you all right?"
"Perfectly fine." She bit her lip. "I believe Cameron needs to find me a softer horse."
Ian grinned, then burst out laughing. His laughter was warm and velvety, so fine she paused to drink it in.
Beth smiled at him and made a show of gingerly sitting down. "You may cease laughing at me, Ian Mackenzie. It was only my first lesson."
He leaned toward her. "You already have a very good seat, my Beth."
"Shall I take it you are referring to how I sit on a horse?"
Ian kissed her cheek and moved to his own chair, still smiling. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and sat down. "Beth likes to joke," he said without looking at the others.
Beth felt the frost of Hart's rigid stare. Daniel's mouth was open in surprise, and Cameron sat very still. Something had happened, and Beth wasn't certain what. ~ Jennifer Ashley

Shouldn't we at least be asking whether the transcending of venereal desire that marriage requires of a mostly or entirely 'heterosexual' man who marries for the sake of love, friendship, and raising a family isn't more or less the same as the transcendence required of a man whose venereal desire is 'oriented' mostly or entirely toward men but who restrains these drives, and who marries for the sake of love, friendship and raising a family? Of course, men with little venereal desire for women can't proceed towards marriage driven by such desire. For them, marriage must develop from friendship. But wouldn't it be better if all marriages developed from friendship? ~ Jonathan Mills

You have a minute and a half left."
"Fine," she snapped. "Then I'll reduce this conversation to one single fact. Today I had six callers. Six! Can you recall the last time I had six callers?"
Anthony just stared at her blankly.
"I can't," Daphne continued, in fine form now. "Because it has never happened. Six men marched up our steps, knocked on our door, and gave Humboldt their cards. Six men brought me flowers, engaged me in conversation, and one even recited poetry."
Simon winced.
"And do you know why?" she demanded, her voice rising dangerously. "Do you?"
Anthony, in his somewhat belatedly arrived wisdom, held his tongue.
"It is all because he" - she jabbed her forefinger toward Simon - "was kind enough to feign interest in me last night at Lady Danbury's ball. ~ Julia Quinn

Call it precious and go to hell, but I believe a story can be wrecked by a faulty rhythm in a sentence - especially if it occurs toward the end - or a mistake in paragraphing, even punctuation. Henry James is the maestro of the semicolon. Hemingway is a first-rate paragrapher. From the point of view of ear, Virginia Woolf never wrote a bad sentence. I don't mean to imply that I successfully practice what I preach. I try, that's all. ~ Truman Capote

An organization with excellent internal communication will run smoothly, allowing its members to progress toward a mutual goal, which will ultimately affect the quality of external communication. ~ Scribendi

FOR A VERY LONG MOMENT WE ALL STOOD IN A FROZEN tableau of hostile indecision. Debs and Recht stared at each other, Deke breathed through his mouth, and I tried to decide whether assisting the fallen woman was technically within my jurisdiction as a blood-spatter analyst. And then there was a clatter at the front door and I heard a minor commotion behind me. "Shit," a male voice called out, quite clearly. "Shit, shit, shit." It was impossible to argue with the general sentiment, but nevertheless I turned around to see if I could gather some specifics. A middle-aged man hurried toward us. He was tall and soft-looking and had close-cropped gray hair and a matching beard. He slid to one knee beside Mrs. Aldovar and picked up her hand. "Hey, Emily? Honey?" he said as he patted her hand. "Come on, Em." I ~ Jeff Lindsay

A woman once of some height, she is bent small, and the lingering strands of black look dirty in her white hair. She carries a cane, but in forgetfulness, perhaps, hangs it over her forearm and totters along with it dangling loose like an outlandish bracelet. Her method of gripping her gardener is this: he crooks his right arm, pointing his elbow toward her shoulder, and she shakily brings her left forearm up within his and bears down heavily on his wrist with her lumpish freckled fingers. Her hold is like that of a vine to a wall; one good pull will destroy it, but otherwise it will survive all weathers. ~ John Updike

... People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition. - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet ~ Alice Walker

Many amateurs believe that plants and animals reproduce on a one-way route toward perfection. Translating the idea in social terms, they believe that companies and organizations are, thanks to competition (and the discipline of the quarterly report), irreversibly heading toward betterment. The strongest will survive; the weakest will become extinct. As to investors and traders, they believe that by letting them compete, the best will prosper and the worst will go learn a new craft (like pumping gas or, sometimes, dentistry). Things are not as simple as that. We will ignore the basic misuse of Darwinian ideas in the fact that organizations do not reproduce like living members of nature - Darwinian ideas are about reproductive fitness, not about survival. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people. We're building a new partnership between our nations and we are ending a war not with a final battle but with a final march toward home. This is an extraordinary achievement ~ Barack Obama

The shadows outside tamed none of him. No, they cast him as stronger and more dangerous than ever before. He was bigger. Hungrier. Predatory.

He said nothing as he crawled through the window, but his dark, flashing eyes and body stalking toward her spoke volumes. ~ Kendall Grey

The progression of a painter's work ... will be toward clarity; toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer ... to achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood. ~ Mark Rothko

See that guy over there?" I nod toward a man in jean shorts and a Budweiser T-shirt. "Am I that obvious?"
St. Clair squints at him. "Obviously what? Balding? Overweight? Tasteless?"
"American."
He sighs melodramtically. "Honestly, Anna. You must get over this."
"I just don't want to offend anyone. I hear they offend easily."
"You're not offending anyone except me right now."
"What about her?" I point to a middle-aged woman in khaki shorts and a knit top with stars and stripes on it.She has a camera strapped to her belt and is arguing with a man in a bucket hat. Her husband,I suppose.
"Completely offensive."
"I mean,am I as obvious as her?"
"Considering she's wearing the American flag, I'd venture a no on that one." He bites his thumbnail. "Listen.I think I have a solution to your problem, but you'll have to wait for it. Just promise you'll stop asking me to compare you to fifty-year-old women,and I'll take care of everything."
"How? With what? A French passport?"
He snorts. "I didn't say I'd make you French." I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off. "Deal?"
"Deal," I say uncomfortably. I don't care for surprises. "But it better be good."
"Oh,it's good." And St. Clair looks so smug that I'm about to call him on it, when I realize I can't see our school anymore.
I don't believe it.He's completely distracted me. ~ Stephanie Perkins

When the wave, equally suddenly, retreated, it left a void which resembled that of the morning, yet had a character of its own, because though the pattern was repeated it was in reverse order: the scattered schoolchildren who passed my window now were on their way home and there was something unrestrained and boisterous about them, whereas when they had walked past on their way to school in the morning they still bore the silent imprint of sleep and the innate wariness we feel toward things that have not yet begun. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

Our forgiving love toward men is the evidence of God's forgiving love in us. It is a necessary condition of the prayer of faith. ~ Andrew Murray

To refuse to do something because you've already done it, because you've already been there, rapidly leads to the destruction, for yourself as much as for others, of any reason for living, for any possible future, and it plunges you into an oppressive ennui that will eventually transform into atrocious bitterness, accompanied by hatred and rancor toward those who still belong to the land of the living. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Part of you liked him," Jack said, giving her an intent stare. "I could see it in your writing."
She smiled uncomfortably. "Well, in the realm of fantasy, I suppose I did. But certainly not in reality."
The hand behind her neck closed in a gentle but secure grip. "Then here is your birthday present, Amanda. A night of fantasy." He loomed over her, his head and broad shoulders obliterating the firelight as he bent to kiss her.
"Wait," Amanda said in a flash of panic, turning her head as Jack's mouth approached hers. His lips pressed on her cheek, a brush of intimate heat that astonished her. "Wait," she said again, her voice wobbling. Her face was turned full toward the fire, its yellow glow dazzling her eyes as she sought to avoid the stranger's exploring kisses. His mouth moved gently over her cheek and toward her ear, tickling the tiny wisps of hair just above it. ~ Lisa Kleypas