Under Their Breath Quotes

I don't know anybody that has a teenage son or daughter who at some point hasn't been like, 'God, I hate them' just under their breath. It's not meant to be literal. It's funny. ~ Jaime Pressly

My wife uses fabric softener. I never knew what that stuff was for. Then I noticed women coming up to me, sniffing, then saying under their breath, "Married!" and walking away. Fabric Softeners are how our wives mark their territory. We can take off the ring, but it's hard to get that April fresh scent out of your clothes. ~ Andy Rooney

Thank you for your honesty," Niles says. The Candor repeat the phrase under their breath. All around me are the words "Thank you for your honesty" at different volumes and pitches, and my anger begins to dissolve. ~ Veronica Roth

By the time I've finished with you,
you won't know whether you've been kissed or cut,
whether you were loved or butchered.
and either way you probably won't care,
just grateful you came close enough to touch. ~ Warsan Shire

I have been birds and branches. I have been bees and wolves. I have been ether flooding the void between stars, tangling their breath into networks of song. I have been fish and plankton and humus, and all these have been me. ~ Amal El-Mohtar

Two uniformed trolls were standing in front of Sergeant Colon's high desk, with a slightly smaller troll between them. This troll was wearing a slightly downcast expression. It was also wearing a tutu and had a small pair of gauzed wings glued to its back.
" - happen to know that trolls don't have any tradition of a Tooth Fairy," Colon was saying. "Especially not one called' - he looked down - "Clinkerbell. So how about we just call it breaking and entering without a Thieves' Guild license?"
"Is racial prejudice, not letting trolls have a Tooth Fairy," Clinkerbell muttered.
One of the troll guards upended a sack on the desk. Various items of silverwear cascaded over the paperwork.
"And this is what you found under their pillows, was it?" said Colon.
"Bless dere little hearts," said Clinkerbell. ~ Terry Pratchett

Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn't the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own. ~ Toni Morrison

After the plates are removed by the silent and swift waiting staff, General Çiller leans forward and says across the table to Güney, 'What's this I'm reading in Hürriyet about Strasbourg breaking up the nation?'
'It's not breaking up the nation. It's a French motion to implement European Regional Directive 8182 which calls for a Kurdish Regional Parliament.'
'And that's not breaking up the nation?' General Çiller throws up his hands in exasperation. He's a big, square man, the model of the military, but he moves freely and lightly 'The French prancing all over the legacy of Atatürk? What do you think, Mr Sarioğlu?'
The trap could not be any more obvious but Ayşe sees Adnan straighten his tie, the code for, Trust me, I know what I'm doing,
'What I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don't care. The age of Atatürk is over.'
Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye.
'Atatürk was father of the nation, unquestionably. No Atatürk, no Turkey. But, at some point every child has to leave his father. You have to stand on your own two feet and find out if you're a man. We're like kids that go on about how great their dads are; my dad's the strongest, the best wrestler, the fastest driver, the biggest moustache. And when someone squares up to us, or calls us a name or even looks at us squinty, we run back ~ Ian McDonald

If the age of the Earth were a calendar year and today were a breath before midnight on New Year's Eve, we showed up a scant fifteen minutes ago, and all of recorded history has blinked by in the last sixty seconds. Luckily for us, our planet-mates
the fantastic meshwork of plants, animals, and microbes
have been patiently perfecting their wares since March, an incredible 3.8 billion years since the first bacteria ... After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival. ~ Janine Benyus

It had all been a motherfucking nightmare and the solution was so simple, right there and under their noses. It had just been hidden: love. Fair and square. Just love. ~ Aleksandr Voinov

Donald Trump is a breath of fresh air in the nation where the political establishment from both parties has betrayed their constituencies time and time again. ~ Jerry Falwell, Jr.

Hunted what?" Shea held her breath, afraid of what he might say.
"Beautiful women, little one, and I was the one who found you after all." His white teeth gleamed at her, a definite leer.
"Don't put me off like that." She had already taken advantage, sliding easily into his mind and picking out the pictures of danger and revulsion. Fear even. Not so much of their adversary, but of themselves turning into the very thing they sought to destroy.
Jacques, unprepared for her entrance into his mind, had been confident he could keep the grimmer side of their existence watered down for her. Shea had always been reluctant to enter his mind; it hadn't occurred to him that she would do so whenever she wanted.
His expression was so rueful that Shea burst out laughing. "Where I grew up, that's called being caught with your pants down."
He looked down at his body, glistening with the rain. His grin was self-mocking, his black eyes amused. "Literally. ~ Christine Feehan

The moon rises. The red cubs rolling
In the ferns by the rotten oak
Stare over a marsh and a meadow
To the farm's white wisp of smoke.
A spark burns, high in heaven.
Deer thread the blossoming rows
Of the old orchard, rabbits
Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows
From the tree by the widow's walk;
Two stars in the trees to the west,
Are snared, and an owl's soft cry
Runs like a breath through the forest.
Here too, though death is hushed, though joy
Obscures, like night, their wars,
The beings of this world are swept
By the Strife that moves the stars. ~ Randall Jarrell

The rabbit quivered a little under their scrutiny but mainly lay still. Fear masquerading as acceptance. ~ Jane Harper

Christopher is three. He looks like and unlike his mother, like and unlike his father. He is their love come to life, their two hearts intertwined and given shape and breath ~ Cassandra Clare

Beauty

Void lay the world, in nothingness concealed,
Without a trace of light or life revealed,
Save one existence which second knew-
Unknown the pleasant words of We and You.
Then Beauty shone, from stranger glances free,
Seen of herself, with naught beside to see,
With garments pure of stain, the fairest flower
Of virgin loveliness in bridal bower.
No combing hand had smoothed a flowing tress,
No mirror shown her eyes their loveliness
No surma dust those cloudless orbs had known,
To the bright rose her cheek no bulbul flown.
No heightening hand had decked the rose with green,
No patch or spot upon that cheek was seen.
No zephyr from her brow had fliched a hair,
No eye in thought had seen the splendour there.
Her witching snares in solitude she laid,
And love's sweet game without a partner played.
But when bright Beauty reigns and knows her power
She springs indignant from her curtained bower.
She scorns seclusion and eludes the guard,
And from the window looks if doors be barred.
See how the tulip on the mountain grown
Soon as the breath of genial Spring has blown,
Bursts from the rock, impatient to display
Her nascent beauty to the eye of day.
When sudden to thy soul reflection brings
The precious meaning of mysterious things,
Thou canst not drive the thought from out thy brain;
Speak, hear thou must, for silence is suc ~ Nūr Ad-Dīn 'Abd Ar-Rahmān Jāmī

The wicked will run to the iron bridge, but it will collapse under their weight. The righteous will cross the paper bridge, and it will support them all. Paper is the only eternal bridge. Your purpose as a writer is to achieve one task, and one task only: to build a paper bridge to the world to come. ~ Dara Horn

Everywhere I go, kids walk around not with books under their arms, but with radios up against their heads. Children can't read or write, but they can memorize whole albums. ~ Jesse Jackson

The morning of that day, as Gabriel rose and started out to work, the sky was low and nearly black and the air too thick to breath. Late in the afternoon the wind rose, the skies opened, and the rain came. The rain came down as though once more in Heaven the Lord had been persuaded of the good uses of a flood. It drove before it the bowed wanderer, clapped children into houses, licked with fearful anger against the high, strong wall, and the wall of the lean-to, and the wall of the cabin, beat against the bark and the leaves of trees, trampled the broad grass, and broke the neck of the flower. The world turned dark, forever, everywhere, and windows ran as though their glass panes bore all the tears of eternity, threatening at every instant to shatter inward against this force, uncontrollable, so abruptly visited on the earth. ~ James Baldwin

For the senior officers in Iraq, at least in 2005-2006, the responsibility was to the men at the top, the media, the message, the public back home - anything and everything, it seemed, but the soldiers under their command. And that's the ultimate betrayal of Iraq, the one that disillusioned me in Baghdad and Nineveh and keeps me outraged today. ~ Luis Carlos Montalvan

I sound like a sulky teenager, don't I?" "You're more angsty than Edward Cullen on a sunny day." Their laughter filled the car, releasing the ball of nervousness that churned in her stomach during the ride. No matter what she did, there would be a fight. Resigned, Mel took a deep breath. ~ Carrie Ann Ryan

Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. ~ Woodrow Wilson

After Death nothing is, and nothing, death,
The utmost limit of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear
Nor be concerned which way nor where
After this life they shall be hurled.
Dead, we become the lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept
Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.
Devouring time swallows us whole.
Impartial death confounds body and soul.
For Hell and the foul fiend that rules
God's everlasting fiery jails
(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),
With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimseys, and no more. ~ John Wilmot

No matter what a person does to cover up and conceal themselves, when we write and lose control, I can spot a person from Alabama, Florida, South Carolina a mile away even if they make no exact reference to location. Their words are lush like the land they come from, filled with nine aunties, people named Bubba. There is something extravagant and wild about what they have to say - snakes on the roof of a car, swamps, a delta, sweat, the smell of sea, buzz of an air conditioner, Coca-Cola - something fertile, with a hidden danger or shame, thick like the humidity, unspoken yet ever-present.

Often when a southerner reads, the members of the class look at each other, and you can hear them thinking, gee, I can't write like that. The power and force of the land is heard in the piece. These southerners know the names of what shrubs hang over what creek, what dogwood flowers bloom what color, what kind of soil is under their feet.

I tease the class, "Pay no mind. It's the southern writing gene. The rest of us have to toil away. ~ Natalie Goldberg

As Nouri entered the sacred space, he could feel his breath catch and a shiver run down his spine. The floor was lined with fine woven carpets, the walls were graced with filigreed windows, and the dome - which spread out over their heads - was richly painted with flowers and leaves and suns and moons and stars. But what thrilled Nouri the most was the fact that wherever he looked - on the walls - on the doors - on the frieze that ran in a circle beneath the dome - were the most exquisitely calligraphed words. ~ Michael Golding

By all appreciable signs, they loved; they had looked love, with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love, in those gushes of passion when their spirits darted forth in articulated breath, like tongues of long-hidden flame; and yet there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any slightest caress, such as love claims and hallows. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Reshaping life! People who can say that have never understood a thing about life - they have never felt its breath, its heartbeat - however much they have seen or done. They look on it as a lump of raw material that needs to be processed by them, to be ennobled by their touch. But life is never a material, a substance to be molded. If you want to know, life is the principle of self-renewal, it is constantly renewing and remaking and changing and transfiguring itself, it is infinitely beyond your or my obtuse theories about it. ~ Boris Pasternak

One of the new conscripts, a useless, terrified little creature ... These boys are no use out here. Why send them? Why not recognise that cowardice is a fact and most cowards wish they weren't, and it's not their fault and it's not under their control, and keep them the hell out of our way while we get on with it? ~ Louisa Young

To clothe the penguins is a very serious business. At present when a penguin desires a penguin he knows precisely what he desires and his lust is limited by an exact knowledge of its object. At this moment two or three couples of penguins are making love on the beach. See with what simplicity! No one pays any attention and the actors themselves do not seem to be greatly preoccupied. But when the female penguins are clothed, the male penguin will not form so exact a notion of what it is that attracts him to them. His indeterminate desires will fly out into all sorts of dreams and illusions; in short, father, he will know love and its mad torments. And all the time the female penguins will cast down their eyes and bite their lips, and take on airs as if they kept a treasure under their clothes! . . . what a pity! ~ Anatole France

God came up and kissed Day on his forehead. When Day looked over at Johnson, who was still slowly sipping his soda, the guy did look lonely as hell. Before Day could say something kind, his other headache strolled in.

"Oh hell. What the fuck is going on in here? This must be the officer's gay alliance club meeting."

Day blew an exasperated breath. "And now that you're here, Ronowski, all members are present and we can begin."

Day smiled as God and Johnson practically spit their drinks out laughing.

Ronowski fumed. "Day, you're going to stop calling me gay! I have never been gay! I will never be gay, and I don't like anyone that is gay! So stop saying that before people start believing your bullshit!"

Day clapped his hands together once. "Okay everyone those are the notes from last week's meeting, now on to new business." Day leveled Ronowski with a stern glare. "Ronowski, you are gay, man. You're tightly closeted. But you are indeed gay, ultra-gay. You're fuckin' Marvin Gay. You crash landed on Earth when your gay planet exploded." Day moved away from God and stood in front of an openmouthed Ronowski. "Come out of the closet already. It's so bright and wonderful out here. Dude, I've seen Brokeback Mountain too, don't believe that bullshit. No one cares who you fuck…ya know…like you tell me every. Single. Day. Of. My. Life," Day said exaggeratedly.

He stepped in so close to Ronowski that he could smell the body ~ A.E. Via

They didn't speak. Words were powerless now. Like a pair of dancers who had stopped mid-step, they simply held each other quietly, giving themselves up to the flow of time. Time that encompassed both past and present, and even a portion of the future. Nothing came between their two bodies, as her warm breath brushed his neck. Tsukuru shut his eyes, letting the music wash over him as he listened to Eri's heartbeat. The beating of her heart kept time with the slap of the little boat against the pier. ~ Haruki Murakami

Eyes of blue and hair of fire
Are the keys to your desire.
Angel's voice and will of steel
Shall force the dark witch to kneel.
Death to bind and bind to break
Sun and moon for all our sake.
Prince of night, daughter of day,
Bound as one the witch they'll slay.
Same hour they their first breath drew,
On her last, the witch will rue.
Join the two named in this verse
And see the end of the curse. ~ Danielle L. Jensen

Oh, blast, this is all so confusing!" she complained. "How is a woman supposed to figure out what a man really wants?"
"If you learn the answer to that question, do be a dear and tell the rest of us," Minerva quipped. "Though as far as I can tell, men are simple creatures, for all their posturing. They want food, drink, and a wench to bed, not necessarily in that order."
"And love?" Celia asked.
Minerva smiled. "That, too. Some men do, anyway. You'll just have to spend some time with Mr. Pinter and find out if that's what he wants from you."
"And how on earth am I supposed to spend time with him when he's been avoiding me ever since the last time we kissed?"
"Perhaps he's worried about the difference in your stations."
"That didn't keep him from kissing me." She scowled. "Besides, you've heard what he says about our sort. If anything, he thinks himself above us, not below us. He didn't even ask me to dance tonight! He could have. No one would have thought anything of that. Instead, he spent the entire ball standing about, looking disappointed, and talking to servants."
"Perhaps because you spent the entire ball in the company of your suitors."
Celia released an exasperated breath. "What else was I supposed to do? I'm not allowed to ask a man to dance. And at least I know what my suitors want. Lord Devonmont wants to seduce me, the viscount wants peace in his old age, and the duke wants to marry me. I don't have any idea what Jackson wan ~ Sabrina Jeffries

All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality governments by public opinion ; and it is on the quality of this public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which they draw the breath of life. ~ James Russell Lowell