Used To Be A Saint Quotes

I vaguely remember having a waist," Lark said, waddling into the room. "I could see my feet too. They weren't great feet, but I liked looking at them."
"You'll see them soon then you won't appreciate it. All the stuff that bothers you now will become a faint memory once you have the babies."
"How do you know?" she said, teasing me. "You read that in a book? I get enough know-it-all crap from Raven who watched a TV show and is therefore an expert."
I brought her a glass of low fat milk and English muffins with low fat cream. Lark frowned at the food then smiled up at me. "If I sound bitchy, blame the hormones. You didn't know me before I was preggers, but I was a saint."
Grinning, I handed her the remote and placed a pillow under her feet. ~ Bijou Hunter

People have gotten used to living a botched-up life - to be anxious, insecure, hateful, jealous, and in various states of unpleasantness through the day - slowly humanity has begun to see it as normal. None of these things are normal. These are abnormalities. Once you accept them as part of life they become normal because the majority has joined the gang of unpleasantness. They are all saying, "Unpleasantness is normal. Being nasty to each other is normal. Being nasty to myself is normal." Someone trusted that you would be doing good things at least to yourself and said, "Do unto others what you do unto yourself." I am telling you, never do unto others what you are doing to yourself! By being with people, I know what they are doing to themselves is the worst thing. Fortunately, they are not doing such horrible things to others. Only once in a while they are giving a dose to others, but to themselves they are giving it throughout the day. ~ Jaggi Vasudev

A blanket could be used to represent a thing. Now this thing is curious, because it represents an idea. This idea is called sleep, and as far as ideathings go, it's about as relaxing as it gets. Ideas within sleep are called dreams, and they are like bricks, only not real and considerably lighter and less damaging as they bounce off your skull. So if a dream is an ideaideathing, then a dream about a blanket would be an ideathingideathing, and thinking about that makes me want to crack my brainbone with a brick. ~ Jarod Kintz

I love you." He combed her fingers through her hair,drawing her head back so that their eyes met. "I don't like it, I may never get used to it, but I love you." With a sigh,he brought her close again. "You make my head swim."
With her cheek against his chest, Gennie closed her eyes. "You can take time to get used to it," she murmured. "Just promise you won't ever be sorry it happened."
"Not sorry," he agreed on a long breath. "A little crazed, but not sorry." As he ran a hand down her hair, Grant felt a fresh need for her, softer, calmer than before and no less vibrant. He nuzzled into her neck because he seemed to belong there. "Are you really in love with me, or did you say that because I made you mad?"
"Both.I decided this morning I'd have to bend to your ego and let you tell me first."
"Is that so?" With his brows drawn together, he tilted her head back again. "My ego."
"It tends to get in the way because it's rather oversized." She smiled, sweetly.In retaliation, he crushed his mouth to hers.
"You know," he managed after a moment. "I've lost my appetite for breakfsat."
Smiling again, she tilted her face back to his. "Have you reall?"
"Mmm. And I don't like to mention it..." He took his fingertips to the lapel of the robe,toying with it before he slid them down to the belt. "But I didn't say you could use my robe."
"Oh, that was rude of me." The smile became saucy. "Would you like it back now?"
"No hurry." He slipped his h ~ Nora Roberts

Pre-season isn't just about conditioning but also getting used to each other as a team and a group of men. You spend more time with these people than you do your own family. Pre-season is the time we get used to each other and work out how people work. It can be a lot of fun. Hard but fun. ~ Colin Kazim-Richards

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. ~ Andrew Jackson

Calling him a rover is putting it nicely. Baker is a dog when it comes to women, a real libertine type. There isn't a brothel in Elsace that hasn't seen his face. You know they named the Wastrel after him? Started out as a joke after he got his first shanker, but now that he's pissing needles, it's not as funny as it used to be. ~ Meg Merriet

I thought I'd go home and reread Sue Grafton. It's been a while since I last read the one about the topless dancer who gets poison injected into one of her implants."
"'D' Is For Cup."
"Right. Bern, you know what I wish? I wish she didn't have to stop at twenty-six. When the alphabet's used up, what happens to Kinsey?"
"Are you kidding? She goes straight into doublé letters. 'AA' Is For drunks, 'BB' Is For Gun, 'CC' Is For Rider. There was a whole list in Publishers Weekly a few months back. 'PP' Is For Golden Showers, 'ZZ' Is For Topp- I can't remember them all, but it looks as though she can go on forever."
"Bern, that's wonderful news."
"You'll be reading about Kinsey fifty years from now," I told her. "'AAA' Is for Motorists, 'MMM' Is for Scotch Tape. You'll never have to stop. ~ Lawrence Block

I used to write at home, but it didn't ever occur to me to be a writer. ~ Sarah Waters

To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man. ~ Blaise Pascal

I write pretty much when I can. I used to be very particular about needing certain conditions for writing, but when I had children, I discovered that I was a lot more flexible than I thought. ~ Ann Packer

It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence. ~ Alan Turing

It is not the development of material need which sets the modern vocabulary of aspiration apart from anything which has gone before, but rather the transformation of our spiritual needs. It is our spirits, not our clothes and houses and cars, that set us so radically apart from our own past and form much of the rest of the world. Imagine what we must be like to the primitive peoples who receive our attentions as anthropologists. We come upon them armed with our mastery of nature, and yet they can disarm us with the simplest metaphysical inquiry: what happen when people die? where do they go? what are the duties of the living to the dead? Their cultures are as rich in answers to these questions as our culture is rich in answers to the technical and scientific problems which baffle them.

It has always been a truism of the Western bad conscience that we have purchased our mastery of nature at the price of our spirits. The conservative and romantic critique of Western progress has always used the example of the savage - rich in cosmology, poor in goods - to argue for an inverse historical relationship between the development of material and spiritual needs. Certainly this view could draw upon the dark side of the Christian theology of need. While secular optimists have trust in the permanence of spiritual need, Augustinian Christians have fixed their gaze on the nightmare of the happy slave: the being so absorbed by the material that all spiritual needs have perished.< ~ Michael Ignatieff

A lot of bands that are great disappear a little bit faster than they used to. They don't get as much support for the long haul. You have to be pretty tough to hang in there. ~ Judd Apatow

I asked him how he came to be writing for the popular American weekly. How did he know what to write about or what to say? 'Oh...they have somehow got the idea that I am an unaccountably paradoxical dog, and they name the subject on which they want me to write; and they pay generously.' 'And so you set to work and invent a few paradoxes?' Not a bit of it. What I do is to recall, as well as I can, what my mother used to say on the subject, eke it out with a few similar thoughts of my own, and so produce what would have been strict orthodoxy in about 1900. And this seems to them outrageously paradoxical, avant garde stuff. ~ Jocelyn Gibb

Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity. ~ C.S. Lewis

I used to be surprised and a little annoyed when characters would reappear in my mind, itching to be in another story. Now I realize it's part of the deal, that you create these people out of thin air but then, if you do it right, they actually live. ~ Peter Orner

You must be careful of who you trust, child, of whom you have given your heart to."

I stiffened.

"Power is the most alluring of all vices. It corrupts and destroys," she said, her voice shifting low. "And it is the most hidden of all transgressions."

A cold chill radiated down my spine. "You're talking about Seth."

"He is not what he seems," she said, and a snake snapped at the air. "The Apollyon has committed acts of great treachery."

"I know." My hands curled into fists. "I know what he's capable of. And I know who he used to be and who he is becoming. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

I want you to give them back, Flambeau, and I want you to give up this life. There is still youth and honour and humour in you; don't fancy they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank man kills and lies about it. Many a man I've known started like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime. Maurice Blum started out as an anarchist of principle, a father of the poor; he ended a greasy spy and tale-bearer that both sides used and despised. Harry Burke started his free money movement sincerely enough; now he's sponging on a half-starved sister for endless brandies and sodas. Lord ~ G.K. Chesterton

The arches of the woods, even at high noon, cast their sombre shadows on the spot, which the brilliant rays of the sun that struggled through the leaves contributed to mellow, and if such an expression can be used, to illuminate. It was probably from a similar scene that the mind of man first got its idea of the effects of gothic tracery and churchly hues, this temple of nature producing some such effect, so far as light and shadow were concerned, as the well-known offspring of human invention. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Cher Marcel,
Allô. I am Oskar's mom. I have thought about it a ton, and I have decided that it isn't obvious why Oskar should go to French lessons, so he will no longer be going to go see you on Sundays like he used to. I want to thank you very much for everything you have taught Oskar, particularly the conditional tense, which is weird. Obviously, there's no need to call me when Oskar doesn't come to his lessons, because I already know, because this was my decision. Also, I will keep sending you checks, because you are a nice guy.
Votre ami dévouée,
Mademoiselle Schell. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

It used to be said of a man who had suffered a catastrophic setback in his line of work that he had been handed his head on a platter. We are being handed our heads with tweezers now. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

But she wasn't a wife and mother. And, Joey aside, she didn't want to be one. Her mother had spend every last minute cooking for Papa, cleaning for Papa, looking nice for Papa, entertaining for Papa, producing babies for Papa. The measuring stick she used to judge herself based on how pleased or displeased Papa was with her, their home, and her ability to raise their children properly.
The very thought of being measured by that same stick horrified Billy. She couldn't think of anything worse. As far as she was concerned, domesticity was nothing more than a glorified jail sentence. ~ Deeanne Gist

And so, lastly, does the very name of "Catholic", which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house. ~ Saint Augustine

Surfing is definitely something I used to do a lot more before I was working, but I know the waves will always be there, and it's something that, when I'm not traveling as much, I'll definitely get back into. ~ Marisa Miller

There's your problem," Leo announced.
Jason scratched his head. "Uh.... what are we looking at?"
Leo thought it was pretty obvious, but Piper looked confused too.
"Okay," Leo sighed, " you want the full explanation or the short explanation?"
"Short," Piper and Jason said in unison.
Leo gestured to the empty core. "The syncopator goes here. It's a multi-access gyro-valve to regulate flow. The doxen glass tubes on the outside? Those are filled with powerful,dangerous stuff. That glowing red one is Lemnos fire from my dad's forges. This murky stuff here? That's water from the River Styx. The stuff in the tubes is going to power the ship, right? Like radioactive rods in a nuclear reactor. But the mix ratio has to be controlled, and the timer is already operational.... That means without the syncopator, this stuff is all going to vent into the chamber at the same time, in sixty-five minutes. At that point, we'll get a very nasty reaction."
Jason and Piper stared at him. Leo wondered if he'd been speaking English. Sometimes when he was agitated he slipped into Spanish, like his mom used to do in her workshop. But he was pretty sure he'd used English.
"Um..." Piper cleared her throat." Could you make the short explanation shorter?"
Leo palm-smacked his forehead. "Fine. One hour. Fluids mix. Bunker goes ka-boom. One square mile of forest tuns into a smoking crater."
"Oh," Piper said in a small voice. "Can't you just..... turn it off?"< ~ Rick Riordan

As a child, William Beebe was my hero, and I used to read about him going down in the bathysphere, and I wanted to do that too. And I told my family, I said, 'I'd like to go down and be like William Beebe,' and they said, 'Well, maybe you can take up typing and get to be the secretary of William Beebe or somebody like him.' ~ Eugenie Clark

That is very different from how it used to be in the 20th century. Media was very one way. There's a small little industry. It broadcasted its message and everyone else in the world just had to listen. Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue. I think that's healthy and actually restoring a more natural way. ~ Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I reached the privy and emptied the slop pail, and so forth.
And so forth, Grace? asks Dr.Jordan.
I look at him. Really if he does not know what you do in a privy there is no hope for him.
What I did was, I hoisted my skirts and sat down above the buzzing flies, on the same seat everyone in the house sat on, lady or lady's maid, they both piss and it smells the same, and not like lilac neither, as Mary Whitney used to say. What was in there for wiping was an old copy of the Godey's Ladies' Book; I always looked at the pictures before using them. Most were of the latest fashions, but some were of duchesses from England and high-society ladies in New York and the like. You should never let your picture be in a magazine or newspaper if you can help it, as you never know what ends your face may be made to serve, by others, once it has got out of your control.
But I do not say any of this to Dr. Jordan. And so forth, I say firmly, because And so forth is all he is entitled to. Just because he pesters me to know everything is no reason for me to tell him. ~ Margaret Atwood

I don't understand these rules. Writing rules. Eating rules. Studying rules. Loving rules. Everything in life seems to be governed by rules. Is that the only way to keep a person grounded? Does it really instil self-restraint or is it just a fear tactic that's used so that no one can fly to the highest realms of glory? ~ Aditi Bose

-That's kind of sad.
-I used to think so. Now I think: you're born a certain way. Later you get to decide how much you want to fight/change that. I don't mind being alone.
-You must mind. If you didn't you wouldn't be doing this with me. ~ Doug Dorst

The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is to ask what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters? ~ Meg Whitman

In the history of pop music, a lot of great records cost an enormous amount of money. There used to be a time where people that had means to experiment would do it, you know? ~ Thomas Bangalter

My family was musical on both sides. My father's family had a famous flautist and a classical pianist. My mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple's double - she was the diva of the family. At 8, I learned how to play guitar. I used to play songs from the '20s, '30s and '40s in the kitchen for my grandmother. ~ Gloria Estefan

You're afraid of me," I said. "You and the rest of the Luminary Council. You made me into a powerful voice, thinking I would always be your voice, but you were wrong. I am not a tool to be used at your convenience. I will not be wielded against the very foundations of the treaty named after me. ~ Jodi Meadows

Hip hop is just a reflection of what's going on, or where the art is ... Technology definitely gives artists a new mind, new voice and creativity. Right now people need to be more places at once ... so whatever can get people to the next level to be efficient is how technology is going to be used ... The danger is if people are relying too much on the machines, that new mind and new voice always has to come from within. ~ Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

We won't have come expecting gunfire. A shooter. As many times as it happens, as we see it happen on our screens, we still walk around in our lives thinking: No, not us, that happens to them, the people on the other side of the screen, the victims, their families, we don't know those people, we don't even know people who know those people, we're once and twice removed from most of what we see on the other side of the screen, especially that awful man, always a man, we watch and feel the horror, the unbelievable act, for a day, for two whole days, for a week, we post and click links and like and don't like and repost and then, and then it's like it didn't happen, we move on, the next thing comes. We get used to everything to the point that we even get used to getting used to everything. Or we only think we're used to it until the shooter, until we meet him in real life, when he's there with us, the shots will come from everywhere, inside, outside, past, future, now, and we won't know right away where the shooter is, the bodies will drop, the depths of the booms will make our hearts skip beats, the rush of panic and spark and sweat on our skin, nothing will be more real than the moment we know in our bones the end is near. ~ Tommy Orange

I don't want revenge, Mandalay, I want Dwayne to be stopped. If he's not, somebody else will suffer like I am, like my parents and little brother are. And . . . "
"And what?"
"I think I'm the one who's supposed to stop him. It has to be me because I've killed people before. It won't change my song like it would my daddy's, or Aiden's, or Terry Joe's."
"So you remembered what happened to you, then?"
"No. I know what happened, and that's enough. If I remembered what happened, then the next time I tried to do it, it'd get all tangled up with those memories." She recalled the cliff-top conversation with Bliss. "The night wind's been preparing me for this, Mandalay. There's a need out there, and I can fill it. But it'll be on my terms."
"And what're those?"
Bronwyn smiled coldly. "Whatever I say they are."
"And how's that different from how you used to be? The Bronwynator, doing whatever she wants?"
"Maybe the 'how' ain't any different. But the 'why' is. You and the First Daughters wanted me back, didn't you? Now you've got me. And if it means you got the hum you wanted but the shiver's different, well, that's tough. ~ Alex Bledsoe

Not because of you. You were perfect. Are perfect. You're considerate, moral, brave. But you reminded me…"He couldn't finish.
I swallowed through a dry throat. "Of her."
"No." He blinked. "Of me. Who I used to be. Somebody who would stick up for his friends, even if it was risky. Somebody who put other people first. Somebody who…" He let out a helpless laugh. "Somebody who screwed up a lot. ~ Jenn Marie Thorne

These are a traveler's snakes," Conall countered. "But even on a larger scale, they're different." He smirked at Galen's expression of mingled disgust and fear. "How do I know I can trust you?" he asked again. He let out a sigh. "My girls talked to you."

Galen searched his face. "Let's just say I have a vested interested. One that's very close to me. And another who might be?" he asked hesitantly, and Conall raised his eyebrows.

"You're very forward. More than I'm used to."

"More than you're used to?" Galen laughed. "Says the man who covers himself in gold powder, then stands on a stage wearing nothing but shorts leaving very little to the imagination, and three snakes?"

Conall squirmed in his chair. "When you put it like that… That's my outside personality - my stage persona. The one Henry calls The Incredible Constrictor. I hate it, but once he's stuck on something, it's very hard to shake him. I could have strangled him. You'd think I was the one doing the constricting."

"Do you?" Galen asked with a half smile. Conall blushed, his tan hiding some of it, but not all.

"Only when encouraged," he finally muttered back, and Galen laughed. ~ Wendy Clements

American literature isn't anybody phoning to anybody or anybody writing about anybody. American literature is the woman in the courtroom who, finding herself undefended on a charge, asked, 'Isn't anybody on my side?' It's also the phrase I used that was once used in court of a kid who, on being sentenced to death, said, 'I knew I'd never get to be twenty-one anyhow. ~ Nelson Algren

I used to say Edinburgh was a beautiful actress with no talent. I thought it was just like a shortbread tin. I think that's because I did six Festivals in a row there, and I never saw the real Edinburgh, just a lot of deeply annoying Cambridge Footlights kids wanting to be actresses. ~ Michelle Gomez

Most e-mails sent in the mid-nineties tended to be long and letter-like: they began and ended with traditional greetings - the ones we'd all previously used on paper - and they were keen to describe the surrounding scene, as if the new medium had made of everybody a writer. ("I'm typing this just by the window, looking out to blue-gray sea, where three gulls are diving into the water.") ~ Zadie Smith

I don't have a problem with many uses of the word genre, just certain ones. I have the most trouble when these labels are used to prevent discussion, to prevent a work from being taken seriously as literature. When we say "genre," we generally mean "something crappy," something that would be sold in an airport. ~ Michael Chabon

Prayer is not to be used as a confessional, to cancel sin. Such an error would impede true religion. Sin is forgiven only as it is destroyed by Christ - Truth and Light. ~ Mary Baker Eddy

The summary of Lambert and Lillenfelt's "Bloodstains" in Scientific American Mind in the October 12, 2007 The Informed Reader passes along many of these authors' strong opinions on complex and controversial topics without informing the readership that the authors' perspective is extreme, polarized, and vulnerable to challenge at many crucial points.
It is clear that false memories can be implanted in about 25% of subjects, when those memories concern issues in the normal and expectable range of experience. However, about 75% of subjects resist such efforts, and efforts to implant memories of abuse or offensive medical procedures are almost universally rejected. Therefore a wholesale attack against therapies that explore patients' memories is unwarranted. "Recovered Memory Therapy" is not a school of treatment. It is a slur used to mischaracterize approaches offensive to the authors' perspectives, designed to evoke an emotional bias against those to whom the slur is applied. ~ Richard P. Kluft

I might get scared of a really big dog, but I don't scare easy. As a youngster I used to watch all the scary stuff by myself, so nothing really gets to me now. There's actually a new series on TV called Hellevator and I filled out an application to be on the show because I love that type of stuff. ~ Andre Dirrell

One last characteristic of the memoir that is important to recognize is one which also applies to essays, and which Georg Lukacs described as "the process of judging." This may seem problematic to some, since...we connect it with 'judgmental,' often used nowadays as a derogatory word. But the kind of judgment necessary to the good personal essay, or to the memoir, is not that nasty tendency to oversimplify and dismiss other people out of hand but rather the willingness to form and express complex opinions, both positive and negative.

If the charm of memoir is that we, the readers, see the author struggling to understand her past, then we must also see the author trying out opinions she may later shoot down, only to try out others as she takes a position about the meaning of her story. The memoirist need not necessarily know what she thinks about her subject but she must be trying to find out; she may never arrive at a definitive verdict, but she must be willing to share her intellectual and emotional quest for answers. Without this attempt to make a judgment, the voice lacks interest, the stories, becalmed in the doldrums of neutrality, become neither fiction nor memoir, and the reader loses respect for the writer who claims the privilege of being the hero in her own story without meeting her responsibility to pursue meaning. Self revelation without analysis or understanding becomes merely an embarrassment to both reader and writer. ~ Judith Barrington

I don't want to say it, I truly don't, but if you've gone this far I suppose it's obvious that what was ignited when I loved you continues to burn. But that's of small importance to you now, and that's how it should be. Everything is in its place. The past rests, breathing faintly in the darkness. It no longer holds me as it used to; now I must reach back to touch it. It is night and I am alone and there is still time, a moment more. I am standing on a long black stage, with a circle of light on me, which is my love for you, enduring. I have escaped - or have been expelled - from eternity and am back in time. But I step out once more to sing this aria, this confession, this testament without end. My arms open wide, not to embrace you but to embrace the world, the mystery we are caught in. There is no orchestra, no audience; it is an empty theater in the middle of the night and all the clocks in the world are ticking. And now for this last time, Jade, I don't mind, or even ask if it is madness: I see your face, I see you, you; I see you in every seat. ~ Scott Spencer

The need for a quick, satisfactory copying machine that could be used right in the office seemed very apparent to me-there seemed such a crying need for it-such a desirable thing if it could be obtained. So I set out to think of how one could be made. ~ Chester Carlson