Trash Can Quotes

Oh, it's just a trash can. Chill out." (Marco) BAM! BAM! BAM! "Okay, so it's four trash cans," (Marco) " BAM! BAM! BAM! "Do you hate trash cans? Is that your problem? Do you just HATE TRASH CANS?!!" (Jake) ~ Katherine Applegate

Prosperity is always built on slave labor. Ask any Ameri-can't. Or Bulgari-can. Yes, we can, eat from a trash can... ~ Will Advise

If you treat your mind like a trash can, don't be surprised when you reach for a thought and all you get is garbage. ~ Zero Dean

It didn't smell so great, and pizza boxes and empty Coke cans had overflowed the trash can and spilled over a significant portion of the kitchen floor. You could barely walk without stepping on clothing that needed to be washed. My furniture was covered with scribbled-on papers and discarded pens and pencils. ~ Jim Butcher

Perhaps the largest single trouble with our abundance of possessions is the fact that so many of them are owned, not because of what they are, but because of what they confer on us. They are there, but we seldom look at them. We have so much, but we love precious little of it for itself. After the itch of the mind has been scratched, matter itself goes into the discard; the junkyard is the true monument of our society. We have the most marvelous garbage the world has ever produced. Literally. Have you ever looked hard at a tin can? Don't. It will break your heart to throw it out, all silver and round and handy. But the truth is you have to throw it out. We produce so much that there isn't time or room to keep it. What is sad, though, is that the knack of wonder goes into the trash can with it. The tinfoil collectors and the fancy ribbon savers may be absurd, but they're not crazy. They are the ones who still retain the capacity for wonder that is at the root of caring ~ Robert Farrar Capon

And then he's grabbing my hand, and pulling me into a storage room they use for art supplies. And he puts his finger to his lips, and the walls are filled with pads of paper and boxes of colored pencils and jars of paint,
and I'm laughing
and he shuts the door behind us
and leans up against it to stop anyone coming in
and like he's trying to get up his nerve now that he's started something,
before we've ever gone to the dumplings and the movies -
he leans in and kisses me.
His lips are cold. The kiss is soft. He has gum in his mouth, and he stops, and giggles nervously, and takes it out and throws it in the trash can,
and looks like he feels embarrassed to have kissed me with the gum,
but I don't care,
and so now I kiss him,
and he's tall enough that he has to bend down to get to me,
and I put my hand on his neck, which is smooth and warm,
and we kiss for a minute in the storage room,and I want to run my hands up his shirt suddenly -
but I don't.
He pulls away for a second and touches my cheek.
"I thought you'd never ask," he whispers.
"I thought I never would either," I say, "but I did."
"Good job," he says, and kisses me again. ~ E. Lockhart

On our second date, I picked up Missy at her house and told her we had to make a pit stop to pick up crawfish bait at the fish market. We'd figured out a way to speed up the process by using the fish market's gutbuckets instead of running nets ourselves. Through trial and error, we determined that the best crawfish bait was buffalo-fish heads. Unfortunately, when I pulled up to the market to get the garbage cans full of fish heads, I realized they had been outside for a couple of days. It was a warm day, and I could tell from the buzzing of hundreds of flies it was going to be nasty! I knew it was going to be the ultimate test of our relationship. The tubs were too heavy for one man to carry, so I told Missy, "I'm going to need your help on this." She crawled out the window, and I led her to the trash cans filled with buffalo heads waiting for us. Like an idiot, the first thing she did was open the lid of a trash can. Immediately, she started gagging and dry-heaving in the parking lot.
"Rule number two," I said. "Never pop the lid on a trash can."
Much to my surprise, Missy regained her composure and helped me load the trash cans into the back of my truck. Right then, I realized our relationship might work out. She was climbing through windows and hauling fish heads. ~ Jase Robertson

I was a typical kid. I dug holes in the yard, threw rocks, had plum battles with the neighbours and used trash can lids as shields. I was always outside getting dirty. ~ Arj Barker

My degree was garbage stuffed inside a trash can of student loans. ~ Jacob Tomsky

A great friend can act like a trash can with a hole in the bottom. To listen to someone else's personal garbage with the same empathy you would spend listening to their joy, and then release that garbage just as quickly as you hear it, without absorbing it, makes you a wonderful friend to that person
and an even better one to yourself. ~ Doug "Ten" Rose

On the first of July, while Ariel sat on their blanket, gazing out at the sun-spangled water, Chyna tried to read a newspaper, but every story distressed her. War, rape, murder, robbery, politicians spewing hatred from all ends of the political spectrum. She read a movie review full of vicious ipse dixit criticism of the director and screenwriter, questioning their very right to create, and then turned to a woman columnist's equally vitriolic attack on a novelist, none of it genuine criticism, merely venom, and she threw the paper in a trash can. ~ Dean Koontz

He sidestepped down the alley and into another one connected to a small garage, where a raccoon with matching black eyes just like his own halted in mid-step next to a trash can.
They stared at each other, not moving or making a sound.
'There there, friend. I am not here to interrupt your nightly activity just as you are not here to interrupt mine.'
They continued their separate ways, who would be caught and who would not remained a mystery. ~ Jackie Sonnenberg

Teaching you to fight at all is an exercise in futility," Ty responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "Luckily for you, I enjoy things like banging my head against a wall."
"I enjoy banging your head against a wall too," Zane replied as tossed the balled-up tape at a nearby trash can. He let a small smile quirk his lips as he sat on the bench to unlace his shoes.
"Shut up," Ty grunted at him. But even though his back was still turned to him, Zane could hear a smile in his voice. "And cut it out with the damn cat jokes, huh? They're starting to catch on."
"Fine, fine. No reason to get catty about it," Zane told his partner with a barely concealed grin. ~ Abigail Roux

The In-Between somehow makes you feel grimy, like all those sights and sounds and sensations and smells have stuck to you, like you've been rolling around in a preschool art class's trash can. ~ Michael Reaves, Mallory Reaves

America, is there lipstick on my teeth?" Zoe asked. I turned to my left and found her smiling maniacally, exposing all her pearly whites.
"No, you're good," I answered, seeing out of the corner of my eye that Marlee was nodding in confirmation.
"Thanks. How is he so calm?" Zoe asked, pointing over at Maxon, who was talking to a member of the crew. She then bent down and put her head between her legs and started doing controlled breathing.
Marlee and I looked at each other, eyes wide with amusement, and tried not to laugh. It was hard if we looked at Zoe, so we surveyed the room and chatted about what others were wearing. There were several girls in seductive reds and lively greens, but no one else in blue. Olivia had gone so far as to wear orange. I'd admit that I didn't know that much about fashion, but Marlee and I both agreed that someone should have intervened on her behalf. The color made her skin look kind of green.
Two minutes before the cameras turned on, we realized it wasn't the dress making her look green. Olivia vomited into the closest trash can very loudly and collapsed on the floor. Silvia swooped in, and a fuss was made to wipe the sweat off her and get her into a seat. She was placed in the back row with a small receptacle at her feet, just in case.
Bariel was in the seat in front of her. I couldn't hear what she muttered to the poor girl from where I was, but it looked like Bariel was prepared to injure Olivia should she have another ~ Kiera Cass

I came up with a new reason
To write your name today
I plagiarized each letter
From a love note you wrote me.
The scent of ink was sacred to me
In that relapsed moment…
For a minute I could pretend
The paper reminded me of your skin;
I could pretend the glimmering ink
Was the moonlit lake
Of our summer night.
But the pretending crumpled with paper
And I threw us into the trash can
For the bridge between us is long burned
And it's time I accepted that. ~ Justin Wetch

You keep asking me that," she said sharply. "No. I don't care to notify anyone. I can't bear a crowd of relatives around me. I threw away that damned corset in a trash can. I won't return to that." There ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I guess if your heart's in the right place, the trash can go anywhere. ~ Greg Gutfeld

At the demonstration of sixty feminists against the Miss America Pageant in 1968, when the women filled a trash can with bras, girdles, curlers and spike-heeled shoes, the bra-burning myth was launched by the media and, in spite of its inaccuracy and spiteful intent, put radical feminism on the map. ~ Hilda Scott

The South did not bustle and plow and struggle against the snow; it slept beneath it, the silence broken only by the chatter of hungry birds and the exuberant shouts of children using trash can lids as makeshift sleds. ~ Lauren Gilley

She took out the bottle of Lariam and without so much as a thoughtful glance dropped it in the trash can beside her. She felt that there was something deeply flawed in her imagination that she hadn't even considered the fact that the pills could just be thrown away. ~ Ann Patchett

The heroic New York doctor who caught Ebola has been declared Ebola free. President Obama called the doctor to thank him for his selflessness and compassion. Then to be safe, Obama threw his phone in a trash can and lit it on fire. ~ Jimmy Fallon

When we got to the house he opened the trash-can lid and tossed the baseball mitts inside.

"Bye, Andrew," I said softly.

"Bye, son," Dad agreed, as we went inside. ~ Meredith Russo

Ponyboy, listen, don't get tough. You're not like the rest of us and don't try to be ... "
What was the matter with Two-Bit? I knew as well as he did that if you got tough you didn't get hurt. Get smart and nothing can touch you ...
"What in the world are you doing?" Two-Bit's voice broke into my thoughts.
I looked up at him. "Picking up the glass."
He stared at me for a second, then grinned. "You little sonofagun," he said in a relieved voice. I didn't know what he was talking about, so I just went on picking up the glass from the bottle end and put it in a trash can. I didn't want anyone to get a flat tire. ~ S.E. Hinton

Our eyes met across the crowded room, like in the movies, except we didn't share a knowing smile and race into each other's arms. Instead I fell into the trash can. ~ Julie Anne Peters

Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb

When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb

When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace

In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race

No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up

If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup

If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on

And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone

And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it

And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it

And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long

And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong

And lonesome comes up as down goes the day

And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away

And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin'

And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin'

And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys

Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys

And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin'

And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin'

And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin'

And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin'

And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm

And t ~ Bob Dylan

I already am eating from the trash can all the time. The name of this trash can is ideology. The material force of ideology makes me not see what I am effectively eating. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Loneliness had been the trash can fire he huddled around for most of his life. ~ Michael Connelly

A photographer needs to be a good editor of negatives and prints! In fact, most of the prints I make are for my eyes only, and they are no good. I find the single most valuable tool in the darkroom is my trash can - that's where most of my prints end up. ~ John Sexton

Is life worth living in the jaws of society's trash can for misfit minds? What can I possibly achieve or contribute to mankind in this steel and concrete box with a damn loud laughing wall that moves? Just give up? ~ Daniel Keyes

A band like Depeche Mode would go out and record them hitting a trash can with a steel rod or something and recording it. And that would be one of their sounds of the drums. I love the creativeness of that kind of really raw sampling. ~ Chino Moreno

I remember, once, my sister used to tell me that they found me in the trash-can when I was younger, so one time I pushed my sister into a trash-can - I put it over her head and pushed her down the street. And then after that, we been close ever since. ~ Vince Staples

She merely wiped the floor with paper towels and said nothing, brushing her free hand against my shoulder blade - my shoulder blade! - as she carried the soaked paper to the trash can, never holding me fast, refraining not out of lack of humanity but out of fear of being drawn into a request for further tenderness, a request that could only bring her face-to-face with some central revulsion, a revulsion of her husband or herself or both, a revulsion that had come from nowhere, or from her, or perhaps from something I'd done or failed to do, who knew, she didn't want to know, it was too great a disappointment, far better to get on with the chores, with the baby, with the work, far better to leave me to my own devices, as they say, to leave me to resign myself to certain motifs, to leave me to disappear guiltily into a hole of my own digging. When the time came to stop her from leaving, I did not know what to think or wish for, her husband who was now an abandoner, a hole-dweller, a leaver who had left her to fend for herself, as she said, who'd failed to provide her with the support and intimacy she needed, she complained, who was lacking some fundamental wherewithal, who no longer wanted her, who beneath his scrupulous marital motions was angry, whose sentiments had decayed into a mere sense of responsibility, a husband who, when she shouted, "I don't need to be provided for! I'm a lawyer! I make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year! I need to be loved!" had silently ~ Joseph O'Neill

She didn't even notice right away that a small animal had come out from behind a nearby car and was slowly making its way toward the trash can she was standing near. She flipped through some old files in her mind, trying to come up with what this thing might be, and after a few seconds decided that
impossible as it seemed
it was a fox. ~ Maureen Johnson

They are in the middle of the sidewalk, face to face, between a tobacco shop and a trash can. Everything they've never said flows into the narrow space between them. ~ Alexis M. Smith

Wouldn't it be nice if we could get rid of hurtful feelings and memories the same way we so easily send a bad picture sailing into our computer's trash can? ~ Liz Fenton

Louis Armstrong, who learned to be in exquisite dress, came from the bottom, and he's not a trash can. ~ Stanley Crouch

I wrapped up the remaining half burrito and tossed it into the trash can. Molly watched this act of wastefulness with an expression like she had just seen her entire family die in a fire. ~ David Wong

When are the world's political parties going to get appropriate symbols: snake, louse, jackal, ... trash can, clown face, ... dollar bill with bat wings on it? ~ P. J. O'Rourke

LEADING LESSONS
Free yourself to have bad ideas.

Whenever I try to think of a brilliant new dance routine, it usually falls flat on its face. It's crushed by the weight of my own expectations for brilliance. It's much more fruitful to follow the advice of the songwriter who said, "When you write new songs, write for the trash can." When I start choreographing a new dance, I don't care how bad the idea is, and I allow myself to run with it. Challenge yourself to think of five awful, terrible, of-my-God-this-stinks ideas. They get the juices flowing. And when you have those five, at the very least you have creative momentum and, more often than not, some of those ideas have legs. Think about the one thing that's original to you and no one else. What's your unique voice? Find that voice and shout with it. ~ Derek Hough

I want to back up to this whole caring about me thing," he said, surprising me as he made his way back to the canvas. "I know you care about me, Mallory."
My heart started beating fast as he shook the can.
"I care about you." He knelt halfway down. A second passed and he moved his arm, spraying on the canvas. "And I think this was missing something."
Having no idea what he was doing or where he was going with this, I waited until he rose and stepped back, to the side. My lips parted on a soft gasp. Rider had spray-painted a heart between our names. I saw it with my own eyes:

Rider ღ Mallory

Angling toward me, his grin was sheepish. Boyish. "That was probably really corny, wasn't it?"
My heart was doing overtime, thumping so fast I thought I might have a heart attack.
"Or it was too much?" He tossed the can in a nearby trash can and slowly approached me. His cheeks were a vibrant pink. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Willie called me one night in September 1991 after I had been gone a few weeks and said, "Let's get back together." I knew I loved him, but I told him I wasn't sure about it. He was trying to change my life, and it was really his way or no way. I just didn't know what to do.
"Let me think about it," I said. "I'll call you back tomorrow."

I was convinced she'd found someone else. I was telling all my buddies that it was over between us, and I was gathering other girls' phone numbers to prepare myself to move on. I just knew it was over, and I wasn't waiting to hear it from her the next day. I was convinced she wanted to end our relationship but couldn't muster the courage to tell me. Korie called me the next day, and I was ready to tell her that I didn't want to get back together anymore and that our relationship was over. I was certainly going to end it before she ended it. I just knew she already had a new boyfriend at Harding.
"I've got something to tell you," Korie told me.
"What do you want to say?" I asked her, deciding it better to hear her out first.
"Let's get back together," she said.
My ears started buzzing. I threw all the girls' phone numbers in the trash can. About a month later, Korie and I decided we were going to get married. ~ Willie Robertson

Long hours spent checking off a to-do list and ending the day with a full trash can and a clean desk are not virtuous and have nothing to do with success. Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list - a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.
To-do lists tend to be long; success lists are short. One pulls you in all directions; the other aims you in a specific direction. One is a disorganized directory and the other is an organized directive. If a list isn't built around success, then that's not where it takes you. If your to-do list contains everything, then it's probably taking you everywhere but where you really want to go. ~ Gary Keller

I find the single most valuable tool in my darkroom is my trash can ~ John Sexton

My first modeling job in Paris, the photographer said, 'Tue es belle,' which means, 'you are pretty,' and I thought he said, 'Tu es poubelle,' which means, 'you are the trash can.' I burst into tears. He was not happy about that. ~ Rachel Nichols

Trash can!
Pritkin cursed and grabbed one, just about the time everything I'd eaten that night paid a repeat visit. Whiskey, pizza, milk shake, beer-and a lone, half-dissolved gummy bear, which was a surprise, since I couldn't actually recall having eaten any. Fun times. ~ Karen Chance

In almost every musical ever written, there's a place that's usually about the third song of the evening - sometimes it's the second, sometimes it's the fourth, but it's quite early - and the leading lady usually sits down on something; sometimes it's a tree stump in Brigadoon, sometimes it's under the pillars of Covent Garden in My Fair Lady, or it's a trash can in Little Shop of Horrors ... but the leading lady sits down on something and sings about what she wants in life. And the audience falls in love with her and then roots for her to get it for the rest of the night. ~ Howard Ashman

It is midnight in the hard part of town. The mask is itching like it always does. The ragged end of my cape is soaking in a puddle of something I don't want to guess about. I'm crouched behind a kicked-in aluminum trash can. It stinks of rotted meat and drunkard's piss - and I feel right at home. (from Nothing to Lose) ~ Steve Vernon

You'd think someone as resourceful as Rachel would know whether or not Toraf was the identical twin of a known terrorist. But nooooo. So we wait by our guard in the corridor of the security office of LAX airport while about a dozen people work to verify our identity.
My identity comes back fine and clean and boring.
Toraf's identity doesn't come back for a few hours. Which is not cool, because he's been puking in the trash can next to our bench seats and it's got to be almost full by now. Because of the regional storms in Jersey, we'd had a rough takeoff. Coupled with the reaction Toraf had to the Dramamine-excitability, no less-it was all I could do to coax him out of the tiny bathroom to get him to sit still and not puke while doing so.
His fingerprints could not be matched and his violet eyes were throwing them for a loop, since they physically verified that they aren't contacts. A lady security officer asked us several times in several different ways why our tickets would be one-way to Hawaii if we lived in Jersey and only had a carry-on bag full of miscellaneous crap that you don't really need. Where were we going? What were we doing?
I'd told them we were going to Honolulu to pick a place to get married and weren't in a hurry to come back, so we only purchased one-way tickets and blah blah blah. It's a BS story and they know it, but sometimes BS stories can't be proven false. Finally, I asked for an attorney, and since they hadn't charged us with any ~ Anna Banks

It was then that my gaze happened to fall on the bookcase, on the gap there, where the old paperback of "Nine Stories" had fallen flat. "Where's the thing?" I said.
"What thing?"
"The mesh. My mesh."
She shrugged. "I tossed it."
"Tossed it? Where? What do you mean?"
In the next moment I was in the kitchen, flipping open the lid of the trash can, only to find it empty. "You mean outside?" I shouted. "In the dumpster?"
When I came thundering back into the room, she still hadn't moved. "Jesus, what were you thinking? That was mine. I wanted that. I wanted to keep it."
Her lips barely moved. "It was dirty. ~ T.C. Boyle

The Geranium

When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine -
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)

The things she endured!-
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.

Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me-
And that was scary-
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.

But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,
I was that lonely. ~ Theodore Roethke

It is so hard to leave - until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world. ~ John Green

Practically all SF is trash. ~ Stanislaw Lem

Venom's pupils contracted the instant before he slid his sunglasses back on.
She couldn't help it. "Why isn't your tongue forked?"
"Why can't you fly?" A smirk. "Those things on your back aren't accessories you know. ~ Nalini Singh

The sun, through the filter of the trees, glints green off the cells of her suit, outlines her soft curves. I'm overcome with visions of my father poring over his books, and the wet, verdant forest floor, and newts pausing over toxic yellow candy, and leaves flying up from the impact of Bryan's body hitting the ground. Another, confused part of me hears my father's voice calling the refs scum, trash, slime. With flashes of fury at Marisa, mixed with a sad, all-consuming longing that feels dangerously like love, I pluck her hands from my face and push her away. -from Fireseed One ~ Catherine Stine

You said that the hours of every day are trash. However, that is the way someone lucky enough to welcome the next day thinks." ~ Aunt Monica ~ Mizu Sahara

ODE TO A HAGGIS

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftan o' the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
You pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o'need
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead

His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reeking, rich!

Then, horn for horn they stretch an' strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive
Bethankit hums

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash
His spindle-shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro' bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs, an' arms an' heads will sned,Robert Burns