Untangle Quotes

The breath hitched in his throat. His hand caught hers, but he did not untangle her fingers. "Why are you here?" she asked him. For a moment she thought he would not answer, then he said, as though reluctant, "I heard you cry. ~ Katherine Arden

To me, chance isn't random. The universe is bound by unseen threads. We have only to untangle them a little to see the pattern unfold. ~ Kathleen Tessaro

I just got my signals crossed. First thing, I have to untangle the connections. Otherwise, I come away empty-handed. Or with someone else's hands. Or even with a missing hand. ~ Haruki Murakami

Sometimes when you try too hard," Aqamdax explained, "things get tangled, and the only way to untangle them is to let go. ~ Sue Harrison

We can never untangle all the woes in other people's lives. We can't produce miracles overnight. But we can bring a cup of cool water to a thirsty soul, or a scoop of laughter to a lonely heart. ~ Barbara Johnson

Where will you go? What will you do?" he demanded.
"That need be no concern of yours
"
"The hell it isn't!" he shouted. "Everything about you is my concern."
She opened her mouth to deny this but the look of him stopped her. For a long tense moment he studied her and when he spoke his voice was low and furious and yearning.
"I don't give a bloody damn if I never share your bed, your name, or your house
you are still my concern. You can leave, take yourself from my ken, disappear for the rest of my life but you cannot untangle yourself from my
my concern. That I have of you, Miss Bede, for that, at least, I do not need your permission."
His words shocked her. She looked decades hence and she saw a specter of what might have been haunting her every moment, her every act, for the rest of her life.
"Your concern is misplaced."
"It's mine to misplace," he said steadily. ~ Connie Brockway

Simplify the complicated, untangle the tangled, follow the threads, to the heart of the matter. ~ Jane Teresa Anderson

...never act on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to untangle. Wait for God's timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. ~ Oswald Chambers

In short, pornography is not about sex. It's about an imbalance of male-female power that allows and even requires sex to be used as a form of aggression ... But until we finally untangle sexuality and aggression, there will be more pornography and less erotica. There will be little murders in our beds - and very little love. ~ Gloria Steinem

O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t'untie. ~ William Shakespeare

When dailiness enters memory, repetition fixes places in the mind, but it also burdens them with a wealth of experience that is often difficult to untangle. ~ Siri Hustvedt

I feel I should point out that I do not mix cocktails or provide helpful advice to those who find themselves in a bit of a pickle; and neither do I untangle emotional difficulties. I just buttle. (The Butler in The Dark Side of the Road) ~ Simon R. Green

When he went back to untangle himself, she planted a kiss on his lips that he promptly
and in as polite a manner as possible
wiped away after his back was turned. ~ Kiera Cass

There was a rightness to things that surpassed understanding, but she knew beyond all doubt that in each and every circumstance her feet had been guided along this path and to this place. A favourite saying in China - which she had heard on occasion from her own grandmother - was that the threads of life are easy to weave, but difficult to untangle. ~ Stephen R. Lawhead

This…Being here with you…I'm scared."
"Don't be. Please, God, don't be scared … We'll figure this out, I swear … I've survived a lot in my life. But that? Losing you? I wouldn't have recovered." I pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. "Then, tonight, I found out that you've always been mine. Every. Single. Day.". … "It's been a hard twenty-four hours. Just give me, like, eight more of sleeping next to you, and then you can have all day tomorrow to twist shit up in your head. I'll untangle it" – I paused to smirk – "on our date. ~ Aly Martinez

It took a couple of months before we were both convinced there were no rules about sexual activities in Hell and our spouses were not going to show up out of the blue. It was hard to start a sexual relationship in circumstances of such bizarre uncertainty, especially for an active Mormon and a good Christian, both lost in a Zoroastrian Hell. We were like virgin newlyweds. All my life I'd been raised to believe this kind of thing was wrong. All my life I had lived with a strong sense of morality. How do you give it up? How do you do things you thought you'd never do? Where do all the things you believed go, when all the supporting structure is found to be a myth? How do you know how or on what to take a moral stand, how do you behave when it turns out there are no cosmic rules, no categorical imperatives? It was difficult. So tricky to untangle. ~ Steven L. Peck

Oh God," I muttered as Toby and I made a frantic effort to untangle ourselves. He scrambled off my bed and grabbed his shirt off the floor, his face glowing scarlet. I reached down and picked up my T-shirt. "Wesley, how did you get in here?" I demanded.
"The door was unlocked," he said. "You didn't answer when I knocked… Now I can see why." His dark gray eyes were big with what I could only guess was shock, dissolving quickly into disgust, and they stared directly at Toby.
"But what are you doing here?" I asked, feeling a sudden surge of anger rush through my veins. I yanked my T-shirt over my head and stood up.
"You weren't answering your phone," Wesley muttered. "I was worried, but it looks like you're just fine." He glared at Toby for a moment before looking back at me. "My mistake. ~ Kody Keplinger

In a civil war ... every side is wrong. It's hopeless to try to untangle it. Everyone is a victim. ~ Philip K. Dick

I realized then, this connection with him would be difficult to cut loose, that his presence was weaving into the tapestry of my life, and that I had no wish to untangle the woven strands any more than I wished to release his hold on my hand. ~ Jody Hedlund

He wanted Ty with him, wanted him badly. Needed him as a partner, and not just at work. Craved him as a lover more than he'd ever jonesed over heroin. Connected with him in so many ways that Zane couldn't see a way to untangle himself and didn't even want to try ~ Abigail Roux

Someone once told me that children are like kites. You struggle just to get them in the air; they crash; you add a longer tail. Then they get caught in a tree; you climb up and bring them down, and untangle the string; you run to get them aloft again. Finally, the kite is airborne, and it flies higher and higher, as you let out more string, until it's so high in the sky, it looks like a bird. And if the string snaps, and you've done your job right, the kite will continue to soar in the wind, all by itself. ~ Charmian Carr

I love him so much it's like a thread piercing me. Punching holes. Dragging through. Stitching love into me. I'll neve robe able to untangle myself from this feeling. The color of love is surely this robin's-egg blue. ~ Sally Thorne

The roots of the discontent are internal, and each person must untangle them personally, with his or her own power. The shields that have worked in the past - the order that religion, patriotism, ethnic traditions, and habits instilled by social classes used to provide - are no longer effective for increasing numbers of people who feel exposed to the harsh winds of chaos. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

No wonder Mr. Tagomi could not go on, he thought. The terrible dilemma of our lives. Whatever happens, it is evil beyond compare. Why struggle, then? Why choose? If all alternatives are the same . . . Evidently we go on, as we always have. From day to day. At this moment we work against Operation Dandelion. Later on, at another moment, we work to defeat the police. But we cannot do it all at once; it is a sequence. An unfolding process. We can only control the end by making a choice at each step. He thought, We can only hope. And try. On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components. We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious. The ~ Philip K. Dick

When I try to brush the road dust off of me and untangle all the wires in my head, I'm usually surrounded by music on a boat. But that's not how I wake up every day. ~ Kenny Chesney

No, when it came to the ultimate and highest questions, there was no help from outside - no mediation, no absolution, no soothing consolation. Every man had to untangle the riddle on his own, had to work diligently at it, at hot speed, all by himself; before it was too late, he must either achieve some clear readiness for death, or die in despair. ~ Thomas Mann

I used to love to untangle chains when I was a child. I had thin, busy fingers, and I never gave up. Perhaps there was a psychiatric component to my concentration but like much of my psychic damage, this worked to everyone's advantage. ~ Anne Lamott

One who knows does not say it; one who says does not know it. Block the openings, Shut the doors, Soften the glare, Follow along old wheel tracks; Blunt the point, Untangle the knots. This is known as dark identity. Thus you cannot get close to it, nor can you keep it at arms length; you cannot bestow benefit on it, nor can you do it harm; you cannot ennoble it, nor can you debase it. Hence it is the most valued. ~ Lao-Tzu

We must all allow ourselves the fantasy of projection from time to time, a chance to clothe ourselves in the imaginary gowns and tails of what has never been and never will be. This gives some polish to our tarnished lives, and sometimes we may choose one dream over another, and in the choosing find some respite from ordinary sadness. After all, we, none of us, can ever untangle the knot of fictions that make up that wobbly thing we call a self. ~ Siri Hustvedt

Look into words for the tomb of space
where beauties & stones & eternities untangle.
( ... )
In them is the flood which bothers the sea
and the songs which need no music.
Say these words that evolve into silence,
whose language survives not being understood.
Pronounce those which are unpalatable &
untangle from all the world wants to hear. ~ M.T.C. Cronin

A change in thought can change a lot. A change thought can untie and untangle the knot ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Meditation has also been proven scientifically to untangle and rewire the neurological pathways in the brain that make up the conditioned personality. Buddhist monks, for example, have had their brains scanned by scientists as they sat still in deep altered states of consciousness invoked by transcendental meditation and the scientists were amazed at what they beheld. The frontal lobes of the monks lit up as bright as the sun! They were in states of peace and happiness the scientists had never seen before. Meditation invokes that which is known in neuroscience as neuroplasticity; which is the loosening of the old nerve cells or hardwiring in the brain, to make space for the new to emerge. Meditation, in this sense, is a fire that burns away the old or conditioned self, in the Bhagavad Gita, this is known as the Yajna;

"All karma or effects of actions are completely burned away from the liberated being who, free from attachment, with his physical mind enveloped in wisdom (the higher self), performs the true spiritual fire rite. ~ Craig Krishna

On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components. ~ Philip K. Dick

Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back. ~ Jodi Picoult

To begin to use cultural forces for the good of our daughters we must first shake ourselves awake from the cultural trance we all live in. This is no small matter, to untangle our true beliefs from what we have been taught to believe about who and what girls and women are. ~ Jeanne Elium

Hallsy is only thirty-nine, and already her face is pulled tight as a pair of Lululemon yoga pants across a plus-size girl's rear. She's never been married, which she'll tell you she never wants to be even though she hangs all over every remotely fuckable guy after a single drink, while they gently untangle her Marshmallow Man arms from around their stiff necks. It's no wonder the only ring on her finger is the Cartier Trinity, what with the way she's ruined her face and the fact that she spends more time sunning on the beach than she should running on a treadmill. But it's not just her sunspot-speckled chest and stocky, lazy frame. Hallsy is the type of person others describe as "whacky" and "kooky," which is just the civilized way of saying she's a nasty cunt. Hallsy she loves me. ~ Jessica Knoll

Max.
God, but she was stubborn. And tough. And closed in. Closed off. Except when
she was holding Angel, or ruffling the Gasman's hair, or pushing something
closer to Iggy's hand so he could find it easily without knowing anyone had
helped him. Or when she was trying to untangle Nudge's mane of hair.
Or-sometimes-when she was looking at Fang.
He shifted on the hard ground, a half-dozen flashes of memory cycling
through his brain. Max looking at him and laughing. Max leaping off a cliff,
snapping out her wings, flying off, so incredibly powerful and graceful that
it took his breath away.
Max punching someone's lights out, her face like stone.
Max kissing that weiner Sam on Anne's front porch.
Gritting his teeth, Fang rolled onto his side.
Max kissing him on the beach, after Ari had kicked Fang's butt.
Just now, her mouth soft under his.
He wished she were here, if not next to him, then somewhere in the cave, so
he could hear her breathing.
It was going to be hard to sleep without that tonight. ~ James Patterson

At Marcy I spot what I am looking for and shimmy up a lampost and untangle the pair of sneakers that some kid has tossed up there that dangle in testement to some shit that I have never figured out as long as I have lived in this city. I sit on the curb and stuff my feet inside leaving the laces undone. There too small but the right one fits a little better than the left. Not having a big toe is already paying off. ~ Charlie Huston

I try to shape a tight laugh, and it dies in my throat. "This is new to me, Wes. Sharing. Having someone I can share with. And I really appreciate your help
That sounds lame. I've never had someone like ... This is a mess. There's finally something good in my life and I'm already making a mess of it." My cheeks go hot, and I have to clench my teeth to stop the rambling.
"Hey," he says, knocking his shoe playfully against mine. "It's the same for me, you know?" This is all new to me. And I'm not going anywhere. It takes at least three assassination attempts to scare me off. And even then, if there are baked goods involved, I might come back." He hoists himself up from the bench. "But on that note, I retreat to tend my wounded pride." He says it with a smile, and somehow I'm smiling, too. How does he do that, untangle things so easily? ~ Victoria Schwab

LOIS: The personal stuff you've been dealing with, did you feel like you needed someone to catch you? Were we not there for you?

DIANA: (pauses) You know how when people talk of depression, they talk of it both coming in storms and coming stealthily? So that, for many, it is the status quo, before they realize... that we lose our self-awareness in that. So I can't... I can't fault the people who love and care for me for not seeing what I did not myself see.

I think, again, when we have our moments of clarity, it is very easy to brush past them, to let the status quo continue. It can be very difficult and sometimes painful to turn and confront them. The only analogy I can think of is chronic pain. When that pain has been with you for so very long, it is background noise. And one is not aware of it until something happens that places it into relief.

LOIS: But you're not talking about physical pain?

DIANA: No. And I am not certain I am talking about emotional pain either. It has been difficult for me to untangle. I think there is a psychological element to it. I think it is important--and I think as a reporter that you would be inclined to agree--that we question those basic assumptions that we often decide are true.

I have found myself in a position where a great deal of what I took as true no longer seems accurate.

That may be because I have changed. That may be because the world has changed. Or it may be becaus ~ Greg Rucka

But one had to go back to the beginning of things, always. Trace the thread of life - find the knot - untangle it. ~ Martha Ostenso

We say to the confused, Know thyself, as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations, we say to the apathetic, Where there's a will, there's a way, as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head, we say to the indecisive, Begin at the beginning, as if beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarls to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skein, or indeed, if we may be permitted one more stock phrase, in the skein of life. ~ Jose Saramago

Who you get, and how it works out- there's so much luck involved, as well as the million branching consequences of your conscious choice of a mate, that no one and no amount of talking can untangle it if it turns out unhappily. ~ Ian McEwan

Afterward, Isabel drove me home and I shut myself in the study with Rilke, and I read and I wanted.
And leaving you (there arent words to untangle it)
Your life, fearful and immense and blossoming,
So that, sometimes frustrated, and sometimes
understanding
Your life is sometimes a stone in you, and then, a star
I was beginning to undertand poetry. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Complete and accurate surveillance as a means of control is probably a practical impossibility. What is much more likely is a loss of privacy and constant inconvenience as the wrong people gain access to information, as one wastes time convincing the inquisitors that one is in fact innocent, or as one struggles to untangle the errors of the errant machine. ~ Victor C. Ferkiss

God often has to untangle some things in you to help you see Him. Even if this process takes months, it's not because he is waiting to see how sincere you are; it's because he is working deep inside you to sort out those things that crowd him out of your heart and set your focus on your own efforts or your own failures. ~ Wayne Jacobsen

hate being alone, but when I wake up in some guy's bed with dry come on the sheets underneath me and he's snoring like a garbage truck, I go, let me out of here. I slip out and crawl around the floor groping for my clothes, trying to untangle his blue jeans from mine, my bra from his Jockeys - Skip wears boxers, of course - and trying to be quiet at the same time, then slide out the door laughing like a seal escaping from the zoo and race home to where Jeannie has been warming the bed all night. Jumping in between the sheets and she wakes up and ~ Jay McInerney

Around none o'clock in the evening, Sean and I climbed onto the tar-paper roof of the U-Find-It building. On one side of the roof someone had dumped a pile of copper pipes and plumbing fixtures that had been ripped out of abandoned buildings. It looked like a giant puzzle that only angels could untangle. ~ John Twelve Hawks

"Sit with me," Isaiah says. As I move to rest next to him, he stops me. "Not there. Here." He motions to the spot between his legs.
Awkwardly, I settle in front of him. Isaiah, the king of secure, waves off any distance between us as he gathers me into the safe shelter of his body. The blood pulses faster in my veins. I like being this close to him. Maybe a little too much.
"You're beautiful." His breath tickles the skin behind my ear, and the small hairs stand on end with the joyous sensation. "You're smart and funny. I love how your eyes shine when you laugh."
He glides his fingers against my skin causing an addictive tingling. "I love how you lace your fingers and brush your hair from your face when you're nervous. I love how you offer yourself so completely to me - no fear. You're loyal and strong."
"I'm not strong." I cut him off. The panic attacks confirm that. Unable to be near him anymore, I attempt to untangle myself from him, but Isaiah becomes a solid wall around me and I jerk in his arms in protest.
His tender hold tightens, and the words feel like poetry because of the deep, soothing way he speaks. "You're wrong. I see you exactly as you are." ~ Katie McGarry

I can't untangle, I can't untangle what I feel and what would matter most. ~ Sara Quin

You all probably think I'm a real dragon."
She was weighing her answer carefully.
"Go ahead," I said. "I can take it."
"We give you the doubt benefit. Always doubt benefit. Not easy to be the boss."
It took a moment to untangle the idiom, and then I liked it too much to correct her. ~ Will Boast

I know why writers write- they write to untangle the knots in their hearts. ~ Virginia Frances Schwartz

I've always done things the hard way. I was born like a piece of tangled yarn. The job is trying to untangle it, and I'll probably go on doing it for the rest of my life. ~ Karen Allen

Editing fiction is like using your fingers to untangle the hair of someone you love. ~ Stephanie Roberts

Here. Let me untangle your hair, at least. If we need to run, we can't have you stuck."
"I don't think Bob's up for running," I said.
"Then you'll take my horse."
"What about you?"
"I'll stay here and whittle a sword and kill the bear or, if that doesn't work, I'll just be eaten alive, happily sacrificing my life for yours." He gave me a look. "Or I'll just stay on the horse and you can sit behind me. Satan can hold two, I'm sure."
"Oh, so you're a cowboy now? I wasn't aware that architects were also masters of horseflesh. You and Satan BFFs now? Practiced your stunt-riding this morning?"
"My dad gave me a few lessons."
"When? When you were six?"
"Well, you know, Harper, maybe we should just stay here and bicker until the bear can't stand it anymore and kills us both. Would that make you happy? ~ Kristan Higgins

As the smoke clears,
I awaken,
And untangle you from me.
Would it make you feel better
To watch me, while I bleed?
All my windows still are broken,
But I'm standing on my feet. ~ Demi Lovato

The complexities of life can never be untangled by man; like a sheep without a shepherd we have been self-programmed for destruction. Jesus Christ is the only way. Genesis 3:6 and John 14:6. ~ Felix Wantang

When your children are very young it is impossible to imagine a life where they will not live with you, where you will not see them every day or know what they are doing. As they grow up, you gradually untangle your 'self' from their 'selves' until the day arrives when you look at your child and realize the role you play in their life is no longer a central one. It's hard to recognize that your child is independent, but it's also incredibly liberating."
-- from Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story ~ Maureen Wheeler

There are stories that don't need a plot. Sooner or later they rise above the confusion and untangle their mysteries in a series of sentences. ~ Patrice Nganang

I felt a hard knot untangle in my chest. It was a relief, a worry that I had not known I had, dissolving like a soap bubble on pavement. We ~ D.C. Lozar

His love for her was so deeply woven with resentment that he could not untangle the two. ~ Kim Edwards