What The Water Gave Me Quotes

Little deer, I've stuffed all the world's diseases inside you. / Your veins are thorns // and the good cells are lost in the deep dark woods / of your organs. ~ Pascale Petit

Whatever stamped itself on Niels's mind, what he saw, what he understood and what he misunderstood, what he admired and what he knew he ought to admire--all was woven into the story. As running water is colored by every passing picture, sometimes holding the image with perfect clearness, sometimes distorting it or throwing it back in wavering, uncertain lines, then again drowning it completely in the color and play of its own ripples, so the lad's story reflected feeling and thoughts, his own and those of other people, mirrored human beings and events, life and books, as well as it could. It was a play life, running side by side with real life. It was a snug retreat, where you could abandon yourself to dreams of the wildest adventures. It was a fairy garden that opened at your slightest nod, and received you in all its glory, shutting out everybody else. ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen

The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they'll ease
Your will they'll mend
And charge you not a shilling.
Nursery rhyme quoted by Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990 ~ Wayne Fields

The truth is, I don't know what will happen across the entire world in the coming decades, and neither does anyone else. Not everyone, though, shares my reticence. A Web search for the text string "the coming war" returns two million hits, with completions like "with Islam," "with Iran," "with China," "with Russia," "in Pakistan," "between Iran and Israel," "between India and Pakistan," "against Saudi Arabia," "on Venezuela," "in America," "within the West," "for Earth's resources," "over climate," "for water," and "with Japan" (the last dating from 1991, which you would think would make everyone a bit more humble about this kind of thing). Books with titles like The Clash of Civilizations, World on Fire, World War IV, and (my favorite) We Are Doomed boast a similar confidence. Who knows? Maybe they're right. My aim in the rest of this chapter is to point out that maybe they're wrong. ~ Steven Pinker

Shortly after we returned from the Platte River in Nebraska, I scouted a few of our duck holes on my dad's property. I wanted to see what kind of ducks had gathered on our land while we were gone. On this particular day, it was cool and crisp as it got close to sunset. As I sat in a deer stand waiting for nightfall, I was counting mallard ducks that flew over my head. Meanwhile, there were fox squirrels scurrying in the trees around me looking for acorns, while groups of wood ducks waited in the water for the squirrels to drop acorns. A few minutes later, fifteen wild turkeys walked in front of me. I thought to myself, Man, this is paradise. As I soaked in my surroundings, I heard the sounds of footsteps in shallow water. A majestic eight-point buck walked right in front of me. I raised my rifle and fired. The buck hit the ground. My dad was in the woods with me and heard me shoot. As we loaded up the deer, I shared the details of what I had seen with my dad. We both agreed that there is nothing better than the beauty of the outdoors. It was about as perfect a day as I've ever had in the woods. ~ Jase Robertson

Many Christians are tempted to believe in billions of years because they have confidence in what the secular scientists teach. But then again, Christians readily accept the resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, Jesus turning water into wine, and so on - all of which are rejected by secular scientists. Some might respond, "But those are miraculous events - the miracles of Christ go beyond natural law. Normal scientific procedure would not apply." But isn't creation a miraculous event? God spoke the universe into existence - something He does not do today. Creation goes beyond the normal everyday operation of the universe. If we arbitrarily dismiss the possibility of supernatural action by God in Genesis, then to be logically consistent, we would have to reject the other miracles in Scripture as well, including the resurrection of Christ - and the resurrection is indeed a "salvation issue" (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17). ~ Jason Lisle

It is a strange, nonintuitive fact of existence that photons of light have no color, sound waves no sound, olfactory molecules no odors. As James Le Fanu has put it, "While we have the overwhelming impression that the greenness of the trees and the blueness of the sky are streaming through our eyes as through an open window, yet the particles of light impacting on the retina are colourless, just as the waves of sound impacting on the eardrum are silent and scent molecules have no smell. They are all invisible, weightless, subatomic particles of matter travelling through space." All the richness of life is created inside your head. What you see is not what is but what your brain tells you it is, and that's not the same thing at all. Consider a bar of soap. Has it ever struck you that soap lather is always white no matter what color the soap is? That isn't because the soap somehow changes color when it is moistened and rubbed. Molecularly, it's exactly as it was before. It's just that the foam reflects light in a different way. You get the same effect with crashing waves on a beach - greeny-blue water, white foam - and lots of other phenomena. That is because color isn't a fixed reality but a perception. ~ Bill Bryson

Before he had come to the town he had known about nothing but death: here he had learnt to live, to decide things for himself; he had learnt what it felt like to wash in clean water in the sunshine until he was clean himself, and what it felt like to satisfy his hunger with food that tasted good; he had learnt the sound of laughter that was free from cruelty; he had learnt the meaning of beauty ~ Anne Holm

Fair?' Bev said. 'Poor baby. Look, you're really sayin' that the ways of life are glum and grim and nasty, and I guess you want to turn crybaby about that, but what's on my mind is, Whoever misled you things were otherwise, hon? What sugar factory spun you out with such silly candy-assed notions? For cryin' out loud. There's other staples I'll break to you right now, too: The sun gives life but you'd be an ash flake if you got too close to it, you got to swallow water to live but sometimes it kills you, Uncle Sam don't truly count you as any relation, and God has gone blank on your name and face. ~ Daniel Woodrell

We're all so happy you're feeling better, Miss McIntosh. Looks like you still have a good bump on your noggin, though," she says in her childlike voice.
Since there is no bump on my noggin, I take a little offense but decide to drop it. "Thanks, Mrs. Poindexter. It looks worse than it feels. Just a little tender."
"Yeah, I'd say the door got the worst of it," he says beside me. Galen signs himself in on the unexcused tardy sheet below my name. When his arm brushes against mine, it feels like my blood's turned into boiling water.
I turn to face him. My dreams really do not do him justice. Long black lashes, flawless olive skin, cut jaw like an Italian model, lips like-for the love of God, have some dignity, nitwit. He just made fun of you. I cross my arms and lift my chin. "You would know," I say.
He grins, yanks my backpack from me, and walks out. Trying to ignore the waft of his scent as the door shuts, I look to Mrs. Poindexter, who giggles, shrugs, and pretends to sort some papers. The message is clear: He's your problem, but what a great problem to have. Has he charmed he sense out of the staff here, too? If he started stealing kids' lunch money, would they also giggle at that? I growl through clenched teeth and stomp out of the office.
Galen is waiting for me right outside the door, and I almost barrel into him. He chuckles and catches my arm. "This is becoming a habit for you, I think."
After I'm steady-after Galen steadies me, that is-I po ~ Anna Banks

Niagara. Used to be a place honeymooners would go. Maybe you seen some movies. All this water, pouring over the cliffs, a thousand rivers falling down all at once, like somehow there was a mistake in the crust of the earth and someone had taken away half of a lakebed. And the force of it, water against water, so strong you can feel the spray on your cheeks a half a mile distant. I never seen anything like it. See, that's the kind of thing that just keeps on going, century after century, no matter what us puny humans are doin all a-scurry over the surface of the earth. ~ Alden Bell

Quince leans in over the map, studying, and I think he's going to ask me something about the kingdoms or my plan or Daddy's trident.
Instead, without taking his eyes off the map, he asks, "What happens if I fail?"

"What?" I whisper.

"If I don't pass the three tests," he says. "What's the consequence?"

I suck in a shaky breath. This is the part I didn't want to talk about, the part I hoped he wouldn't ask about. But I guess he's too clever - or has learned too much about how mer-world magic works - to assume there won't be a price.

There is, and it's a big one.

"If you fail," I say, keeping my voice steady, "then you are banished from the water forever."

He lifts his Caribbean-blue eyes to stare into mine. "And?"

"And?" I echo.

"I know that can't be it," he says. "Nothing in your world is ever that simple."

A part of my heart breaks when he calls it my world. I want it to feel like his world, too. But now isn't the time. He's right; there's more to the consequence of failure than him being exiled.

"And . . . ," I say, wishing I didn't have to tell him this, "I'll be banished from land." I swallow hard. "Forever."

He stares into my eyes, unblinking, and I can't read any sort of reaction. His mind is racing, I'm sure, but everything on the outside is a stone facade.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he says, "Then I won't fail. ~ Tera Lynn Childs

Our strength comes from that magic, from the earth and the sky, from the fire and the water. Fly high, swim deep, give back to the earth what she gives you ... ~ Juliet Marillier

Then I saw the Temptation gleaming like fool's gold on the black water, and my anger returned. The ship was hers too; everything was hers. The room where I slept, the life she had saved . . . had she created it in the first place? And even now, my heart. All hers.
I was not a jealous man - it wouldn't bother me at all if only I had something of my own. So what was mine? The coat I wore? Bought with stolen gold. The money in my pocket? Taken from the harbormaster. I pulled out the handful of tarnished silver; it gleamed dully in the moonlight. I cast the coins into the harbor like dice, like bones. They tumbled into the water and I watched the ripples disappear as though they'd never been. ~ Heidi Heilig

The hoop dancer dances within what encircles him, demonstrating how the people live in motion within the circling spirals of time and space. They are no more limited than water and sky. At green corn dance time, water and sky come together, in Indian time, to make rain. ~ Paula Gunn Allen

I was looking at pictures of cats laying out on the beach and I thought, "Cats hate water, so why would they like the beach?" But then I realized that cats like to just lay around and lounge and be lazy, and what better place to do that than on the beach? ~ Bethany Cosentino

Things that accord in tone vibrate together. Things that have affinity in their inmost natures seek one another. Water flows to what is wet, fire turns to what is dry. Clouds (the breath of heaven) follow the dragon, wind (the breath of earth) follows the tiger. . . What is born of heaven feels related to what is above. What is born of earth feels related to what is below. Each follows its kind. ~ I-Ching

Alone, she took hot baths and sat exhausted in the steaming water, wondering at her perpetual exhaustion. All that winter she noticed the limp, languid weight of her arms, her veins bulging slightly with the pressure of her extreme weariness ... one day in January she drew a razor blade lightly across the inside of her arm, near the elbow, to see what would happen. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

HOW SHOULD THE SOUL not take wings
when from the Glory of God

It hears a sweet, kindly call:
"Why are you here, soul? Arise!"

How should a fish not leap fast
into the sea from dry land

When from the ocean so cool
the sound of the waves reaches its

How should the falcon not fly
back to his king from the hunt

When from the falconer's drum
it hears to call: "Oh, come back"?

Why should not every Sufi
begin to dance atom-like

Around the Sun of duration
that saves from impermanence?

What graciousness and what beauty?
What life-bestowing! What grace!

If anyone does without that, woe-
what err, what suffering!

Oh fly , of fly, O my soul-bird,
fly to your primordial home!

You have escaped from the cage now-
your wings are spread in the air.

Oh travel from brackish water
now to the fountain of life!

Return from the place of the sandals
now to the high seat of souls!

Go on! Go on! we are going,
and we are coming, O soul,

From this world of separation
to union, a world beyond worlds!

How long shall we here in the dust-world
like children fill our skirts

With earth and with stones without value,
with broken shards without worth?


Let's take our hand from the dust gr ~ Rumi

There seemed no answer. He wasn't resigned to anything, he hadn't accepted or adjusted to the life he'd been forced into. Yet here he was, eight months after the plague's last victim, nine since he's spoken to another human being, ten since Virginia had died. Here he was with no future and a virtually hopeless present. Still plodding on.
Instinct? Or was he just stupid? Too unimaginative to destroy himself? Why hadn't he done it in the beginning when he was in the very depths? What had impelled him to enclose the house, install a freezer, a generator, an electric stove, a water tank, build a hothouse, a workbench, burn down the houses on each side of his, collect records and books and mountains of canned supplies, even - it was fantastic when you thought about it - even put a fancy mural on the wall?
Was the life force something more than words, a tangible, mind-controlling potency? Was nature somehow, in him, maintaining its spark against its own encroachments?
He closed his eyes. Why think, why reason? There was no answer. His continuance was an accident and an attendant bovinity. He was just too dumb to end it all, and that was about the size of it. ~ Richard Matheson

Suppose two astronauts go to the moon. When they arrive, they have an accident and find out that they have only enough oxygen for two days. There is no hope of someone coming from Earth in time to rescue them. They have only two days to live. If you asked them at that moment, "What is your deepest wish?" they would answer, "To be back home walking on the beautiful planet Earth." That would be enough for them; they would not want anything else. They would not want to be the head of a large corporation, a big celebrity or president of the United States. They would not want anything except to be back on Earth - to be walking on Earth, enjoying every step, listening to the sounds of nature and holding the hand of their beloved while contemplating the moon.

We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from the moon. We are on Earth now, and we need to enjoy walking on this precious beautiful planet. The Zen master Lin Chi said, "The miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on the Earth." I cherish that teaching. I enjoy just walking, even in busy places like airports and railway stations. In walking like that, with each step caressing our Mother Earth, we can inspire other people to do the same. We can enjoy every minute of our lives. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

O young girl, throw yourself again into the water so that I might have a second time the chance to save the two of us! A second time, eh, what imprudence! Suppose, dear sir, someone actually took our word for it? It would have to be fulfilled. Brr ... ! the water is so cold! But let's reassure ourselves. It's too late now, it will always be too late. Fortunately! ~ Albert Camus

We are attempting to play God, when maybe God put us
here in the first place." Father Tomas's words by the stream came back to me. I could see his stick in the
river, the water dividing on either side. "We can only move forward with what we have been given. Negotiate
the river of life. Of time. And we've been given this," I pleaded, waving at our circle. "Family. Love. Joy. Life.
Can we not embrace it, for as long as we have it? Isn't it what we all most dearly want, deep down? ~ Lisa Tawn Bergren

The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. There are tyrants, not Muslims.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the preceding list -- yes, even the short skirts and the dancing -- are worth dying for?

The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafr ~ Salman Rushdie

Sonnet XII

Full woman, fleshly apple, hot moon,
thick smell of seaweed, crushed mud and light,
what obscure brilliance opens between your columns?
What ancient night does a man touch with his senses?

Loving is a journey with water and with stars,
with smothered air and abrupt storms of flour:
loving is a clash of lightning-bolts
and two bodies defeated by a single drop of honey.

Kiss by kiss I move across your small infinity,
your borders, your rivers, your tiny villages,
and the genital fire transformed into delight

runs through the narrow pathways of the blood
until it plunges down, like a dark carnation,
until it is and is no more than a flash in the night. ~ Pablo Neruda

His life was absurd. He went all over the world accepting all kinds of bondage and escaping. He was roped to a chair. He escaped. He was chained to a ladder. He escaped. He was handcuffed, his legs were put in irons, he was tied up in a strait jacket and put in a locked cabinet. He escaped. He escaped from bank vaults, nailed-up barrels, sewn mailbags; he escaped from a zinc-lined Knabe piano case, a giant football, a galvanized iron boiler, a rolltop desk, a sausage skin. His escapes were mystifying because he never damaged or appeared to unlock what he escaped from. The screen was pulled away and there he stood disheveled but triumphant beside the inviolate container that was supposed to have contained him. He waved to the crowd. He escaped from a sealed milk can filled with water. He escaped from a Siberian exile van. From a Chinese torture crucifix. From a Hamburg penitentiary. From an English prison ship. From a Boston jail. He was chained to automobile tires, water wheels, cannon, and he escaped. He dove manacled from a bridge into the Mississippi, the Seine, the Mersey, and came up waving. He hung upside down and strait-jacketed from cranes, biplanes and the tops of buildings. He was dropped into the ocean padlocked in a diving suit fully weighted and not connected to an air supply, and he escaped. He was buried alive in a grave and could not escape, and had to be rescued. Hurriedly, they dug him out. The earth is too heavy, he said gasping. His nails bled. Soil fell f ~ E.L. Doctorow

Men know what they want. Men make concrete plans. Men own alarm clocks. Men sleep on a mattress that isn't on the floor. Men tip generously. Men buy new shampoo instead of adding water to a nearly empty bottle of shampoo. Men go to the dentist. Men make reservations. Men go in for a kiss without giving you some long preamble about how they're thinking of kissing you. Men wear clothes that have never been worn by anyone else before. (Okay, maybe men aren't exactly like this. This is what I've cobbled together from the handful of men I know or know of, ranging from Heathcliff Huxtable to Theodore Roosevelt to my dad.) Men know what they want and they don't let you in on their inner monologue, and that is scary. ~ Mindy Kaling

He's in the right, he's in the right!" she muttered; "of course he always is in the right, he is a Christian, he is magnanimous! Yes, a mean, horrid man! And no one but I understands or will understand it, and I cannot explain it. They say he's a religious, moral, honest, and wise man, but they do not see what I have seen. They do not know how for eight years he has been smothering my life, smothering everything that was alive in me, that he never once thought I was a live woman, in need of love. They do not know how at every step he hurt me and remained self-satisfied. Have I not tried to love him, tried to love my son when I could no longer love my husband? But the time came when I understood that I could no longer deceive myself, that I am alive, and cannot be blamed because God made me so, that I want to love and to live." … "And he knows it all; knows that I cannot repent of breathing, of loving, knows that nothing but lies and deception can come of this arrangement, but he wants to continue to torture me. I know him; I know that he swims and delights in falsehood as a fish in water. But no! I will not give him that pleasure, come what will. I will break this web of lies in which he wishes to entangle me. Anything is better than lies and deception! ~ Leo Tolstoy

You know, for a while there we kept horses for the boys, and we had a mare that had broken down. Couldn't ride it ... You could feed it and brush it and water it and all. Sometimes, I've thought that's what most marriages get to. A horse you still care a little about but cannot any longer ride. ~ Tom McNeal

You ask how many friends I have? Water and stone, bamboo and pine.
The moon rising over the eastern hill is a joyful comrade.
Besides these five companions, what other pleasure should I ask? ~ Yun Son-do

What is important, what isn't important, and how do you clean yourself from all of the unimportant things. And then you can be content, and feel good with life, which is metaphorically speaking, "walking on water." ~ Eytan Fox

But my attention's elsewhere, drawn to that warm wonderful pull, the familiar loving essence that only belongs to one person - only belongs to him
Watching as Damen cuts through the water, board tucked under his arm, body so sculpted, so bronzed, Rembrandt would weep. Water sluicing behind him like a hot knife through butter, cleanly, fluidly, as though parting the sea.
My lips part, desperate to speak, to call out his name and bring him back to me. But just as I'm about to, my eyes meet his and I see what he sees: me - hair tangled and wet - clothes twisted and clinging - frolicking in the ocean on a hot sunny day with Jude's tanned strong arms still wrapped around me.
I release myself from Jude's grip, but it's too late. Damen's already seen me.
Already moved on.
Leaving me hollow, breathless, as I watch him retreat.
No tulips, no telepathic message, just a sad, empty void left behind in his place. ~ Alyson Noel

I asked nothing from thee; I uttered not my name to thine ear. When thou took'st thy leave I stood silent. I was alone by the well where the shadow of the tree fell aslant, and the women had gone home with their brown earthen pitchers full to the brim. They called me and shouted, `Come with us, the morning is wearing on to noon.' But I languidly lingered awhile lost in the midst of vague musings.

I heard not thy steps as thou camest. Thine eyes were sad when they fell on me; thy voice was tired as thou spokest low---`Ah, I am a thirsty traveller.' I started up from my day-dreams and poured water from my jar on thy joined palms. The leaves rustled overhead; the cuckoo sang from the unseen dark, and perfume of babla flowers came from the bend of the road.

I stood speechless with shame when my name thou didst ask. Indeed, what had I done for thee to keep me in remembrance? But the memory that I could give water to thee to allay thy thirst will cling to my heart and enfold it in sweetness. The morning hour is late, the bird sings in weary notes, neem leaves rustle overhead and I sit and think and think. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter ~ T. S. Eliot

FOR NEARLY THIRTY years, the One who had crafted the universe with His voice crafted furniture with His hands. And He was good at what He did - no crooked table legs ever came out of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth.1 But Jesus was more than a master carpenter. He was also God incognito. His miraculous powers rank as history's best-kept secret for nearly three decades, but all that changed the day water blushed in the face of its Creator. ~ Mark Batterson

Nina pulled off her gown and the heavy rubber belly she had strapped over her tunic while Rotty rid himself of his beard and coat. They tied everything in a bundle and Nina tossed it overboard as they climbed into the bottleboat moored beneath Zentsbridge.

"Good riddance," she said as it sank into the water.

"So little maternal sentiment," Kaz said, emerging from behind the wine crates.

"Where's Inej?"

"I'm fine," said Inej from behind him. "But Kuwei - "

"You're bleeding again," Nina observed as she slid behind the high stacks of crates to join them. There was little traffic on the canal now, but it didn't do to take chances. "And what happened to your eyes?"

"I'd tell you to ask the White Blade, but…" Inej shrugged.

"I hope she suffered."

"Nina."

"What? We can't both be merciful and serene. ~ Leigh Bardugo

When I was 15, I sat in despair one day in a creaky old bus that was winding its way through central Mexico (that's another story), trying to decide if I truly believed in God. Not necessarily God with a big white beard looking down from a Biblical heaven, but some kind of sacred spirit above, beneath, and within all things. I'd always had a deep, instinctive faith (even as a small child) in a sacred dimension to life, a Mystery I didn't need to fully define in order to know it, feel it, experience it. But recent grueling events had shaken my faith and closed that connection.

Now, I realize that sitting and railing at God is practically a cliche of teenage angst; that doesn't make the experience any less urgent at age 15, and I was in a dark place. "Okay," I said, throwing the gauntlet down to whatever out there might be listening, "if there is something more than this, then prove it. Just prove it. Or I quit." The bus turned a corner on the narrow, dusty road, and a gasp went up from the people around me. Above us, a rainbow arched through a bright blue, cloudless, rainless desert sky.

Rainbows have been special to me ever since. I know the scientific explanation, of course, water and air and angles of sunlight and all that. But to me, they are always a message. They say: "The universe is a Mystery and you're part of it." And sometimes that's all I need to hear; that's all the answer I need, no matter what the prayer. ~ Terri Windling

And you? Did you find the doorknob?"
Hadrian picked up a jug and downed several swallows, drinking so quickly some of the water dripped down his chin. He poured some in his palm and rinsed his face, running his fingers through his hair.
"I didn't even get close enough to see a door."
"Well, look on the bright side" - Hadrian smiled - "at least you weren't captured and condemned to death this time."
"That's the bright side?"
"What can I say? I'm a glass-half-full kinda guy. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Bumblebees detect the polarization of sunlight, invisible to uninstrumented humans; put vipers sense infrared radiation and detect temperature differences of 0.01C at a distance of half a meter; many insects can see ultraviolet light; some African freshwater fish generate a static electric field around themselves and sense intruders by slight perturbations induced in the field; dogs, sharks, and cicadas detect sounds wholly inaudible to humans; ordinary scorpions have micro--seismometers on their legs so they can detect in darkness the footsteps of a small insect a meter away; water scorpions sense their depth by measuring the hydrostatic pressure; a nubile female silkworm moth releases ten billionths of a gram of sex attractant per second, and draws to her every male for miles around; dolphins, whales, and bats use a kind of sonar for precision echo-location.
The direction, range, and amplitude of sounds reflected by to echo-locating bats are systematically mapped onto adjacent areas of the bat brain. How does the bat perceive its echo-world? Carp and catfish have taste buds distributed over most of their bodies, as well as in their mouths; the nerves from all these sensors converge on massive sensory processing lobes in the brain, lobes unknown in other animals. how does a catfish view the world? What does it feel like to be inside its brain? There are reported cases in which a dog wags its tail and greets with joy a man it has never met before; he turns out to be the ~ Carl Sagan

President Obama has expressed his commitment to responsible stewardship of our land, water, and other natural resources. And one way of restoring the land to its natural condition is what we are doing here today - breaking pavement for the People's Garden. ~ Tom Vilsack

I don't like getting myself in hot water. But suddenly I find that every minute I have to stop and think about what I'm saying. I can see what's going to happen. I'm going to have to stop giving interviews because I'm always saying the wrong thing. I don't want that to happen. ~ Joanne Woodward

I remember standing on a street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney down in the Village, waiting for the light to change, and he pointed down and said, 'Look.' I looked and all I saw was water. And he said, 'Look again,' which I did, and I saw oil on the water and the city reflected in the puddle. It was a great revelation to me. I can't explain it. He taught me how to see, and how to trust what I saw. Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you've had that experience, you see differently. ~ James A. Baldwin

Fuck, what he'd give to be the one to run her a bath at the end of the day with all that smelly gunk chicks liked to dump in the water and then carry her naked to the bathroom and submerge her weary body into the water and then maybe he'd - grow a new set of balls, since the ones he had between his legs had turned him into a royal, fucking pussy. ~ V. Theia

I went up the stairs of the little hotel, that time in Bystřice by Benešov, and at the turn of the stairs there was a bricklayer at work, in white clothes; he was chiselling channels in the wall to cement in two hooks, on which in a little while he was going to hang a Minimax fire-extinguisher; and this bricklayer was already and old man, but he had such an enormous back that he had to turn round to let me pass by, and then I heard him whistling the waltz from The Count of Luxembourg as I went into my little room. It was afternoon. I took out two razors, and one of them I scored blade-up into the top of the bathroom stool, and the other I laid beside it, and I, too, began to whistle the waltz from The Count of Luxembourg while I undressed and turned on the hot-water tap, and then I reflected, and very quietly I opened the door a crack. And the bricklayer was standing there in the corridor on the other side of the door, and it was as if he also had opened the door a crack to have a look at me and see what I was doing, just as I had wanted to have a look at him.

And I slammed the door shut and crept into the bath, I had to let myself down into it gradually, the water was so hot; I gasped with the sting of it as carefully and painfully I sat down. And then I stretched out my wrist, and with my right hand I slashed my left wrist ... and then with all my strength I brought down the wrist of my right hand on the upturned blade I'd grooved into the stool for that purpose. ~ Bohumil Hrabal

What, concretely, is Enlightenment ?" "Seeing Reality as it is," said the Master. "Doesn't everyone see Reality as it is?" "Oh, no! Most people see it as they think it is." "What's the difference?" "The difference between thinking you are drowning in a stormy sea and knowing you cannot drown because there isn't any water in sight for miles around. ~ Anthony De Mello

No one knows what capacities for doing and suffering he has in himself, until something comes to rouse them to activity: just as in a pond of still water, lying there like a mirror, there is no sign of the roar and thunder with which it can leap from the precipice, and yet remain what it is; or again, rise high in the air as a fountain. When water is as cold as ice, you can have no idea of the latent warmth contained in it. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Too many times we stand aside, and let the waters slip away. Til what we put off til tomorrow has now become today. ~ Garth Brooks