Wiped Quotes

It's time to step back and reexamine our hatred and let wrath subside. Are we striking out against the real problems: ignorance, fear, want, greed, and political disenfranchisement or just trying to find the most immediate scapegoat on which to lay the blame? Are we so busy blaming our fellow Hobbits that we've forgotten who is really behind the fouling of our Shire? Are we personally guilty of greed? Most of us are, to an extent. We need to reexamine our own desires, and make sure they are really needs instead of just wants. Poverty could be wiped out world wide, if enough modern Hobbits just said, "No! We will not stand for it anymore," or if those at the top of the economic ladder really wanted to do so. ~ Steve Bivans

What the hell was that?" one of them asked.

"Jackal," Irene stated quietly while watching city streets turn to suburb.
They weren't taking her to a main airport but a small airstrip. One built
exclusively for private planes.

"Did she just call us jackals?" one of them joked.

Irene grinned which wiped the smile off the man's face. "No. I said the howl
you heard was jackal." She looked at Jenny. "They'll be coming for you."

Jenny glanced at the men and back at her. She looked terribly concerned she
had a lunatic in the car with her. "The jackals will be coming for me?"

"No. The wolves."

Jenny sighed. "Why oh why do I always get the nutcases?"

"Oh!" Irene pointed excitedly. "See that spot up there?"

"What about it?"

"That's where it all started. Where I crossed the Rubicon."

Exasperated, Jenny snarled, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"It's feeding time," Irene whispered.


"That's it." Jenny threw up her hands. "We're so medicating her. ~ Shelly Laurenston

Meg wiped her nose. "So you're saying we need to find Caligula's place and steal his shoes. While we're there, can't we just kill him?"
She asked this casually, like Can we stop by Target on the way home?
Hedge wagged his finger at McCaffrey. "See, now that's a plan. I like this girl. ~ Rick Riordan

Ian's strong hands closed around her. "Are you all right?"
"Perfectly fine." She bit her lip. "I believe Cameron needs to find me a softer horse."
Ian grinned, then burst out laughing. His laughter was warm and velvety, so fine she paused to drink it in.
Beth smiled at him and made a show of gingerly sitting down. "You may cease laughing at me, Ian Mackenzie. It was only my first lesson."
He leaned toward her. "You already have a very good seat, my Beth."
"Shall I take it you are referring to how I sit on a horse?"
Ian kissed her cheek and moved to his own chair, still smiling. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and sat down. "Beth likes to joke," he said without looking at the others.
Beth felt the frost of Hart's rigid stare. Daniel's mouth was open in surprise, and Cameron sat very still. Something had happened, and Beth wasn't certain what. ~ Jennifer Ashley

She dropped her glass and wiped the spill with her sleeve.
'Oh, god, use a napkin,' he said. 'People are going to think you were raised by wolves.' He snorted at his own joke. ~ Faith McKay

Hey," she whispered to Malachi. "When are Irin considered adults?"

He was following what looked to be a quiet argument between Sari and Mala. "Full adults? Around sixty to seventy-five years. When we're finished with our training. Why?"

She flushed. Wow.

"So, you're quite the cradle robber, aren't you?"

Malachi turned to her abruptly. "What? No, I'm not."

"I'm not even thirty. That's like... a teenager to you guys."

She could see the flush crawl up his neck, even behind the beard. "You're human. You mature differently."

"But I'm not really human."

His shoulders were stiff and his posture screamed his discomfort. It was really a shame Ava found teasing him to be so amusing.

"I mean, what would your mom say if she found out you were mated-and I mean well and thoroughly mated- to what she would basically consider a kid?"

He wiped a hand over his forehead. "Heaven above, please stop talking."

"So are we going to stop fooling around now?"

He groaned. "Ava."

"I'm just yanking your chain."

"You're going to have to speak up, because the mental lecture my mother's memory is giving me right now is rather loud. ~ Elizabeth Hunter

He wiped his face on his shoulder, then offered Iseult his hand.

She clasped it tight, her fingers lacing between his. Together they ran. ~ Susan Dennard

The youth do not see the old. They are not programmed to see the old, who are cancelled, negated, wiped out. ~ Doris Lessing

Up ahead about two blocks, a massive figure stepped out into her path.
She halted. Took a deep breath. Felt a prickling in her eyes.
On the breeze drifting down to her, John's unmistakable bonding scent was a dark spice that wiped out the stink of the city and the wretched sting of her unhappiness.
She started walking toward him. Fast. Faster ...
Now she was running.
He met her halfway, falling into a jog as soon as he saw her pick up the pace, and they slammed into each other.
Hard to know whose mouth found whose, or whose arms were cinched tighter, or who was the desperate one.
But then, in this they were equals. ~ J.R. Ward

The one to whom nothing was refused, whose tears were always wiped away by an anxious mother, will not abide being offended.
- De Ira 2.21.6 ~ Seneca.

[W]e conceive the Devil as a necessary part of a respectable view of cosmology. Ours is a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of Lucifer. It is as impossible for most men to conceive of a morality without sin as of an earth without 'sky'. Since 1692 a great but superficial change has wiped out God's beard and the Devil's horns, but the world is still gripped between two diametrically opposed absolutes. The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon - such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas. ~ Arthur Miller

For my part, I never talk to the child about time. We talk about other things
though not about anything much
and never about tomorrow. For me that is impossible. Tomorrow we could all be wiped out. You think back upon all the promises you did not manage to keep. Talk about time and you will always end up making promises. Then it is better to say nothing at all, no matter what. ~ Peter Hoeg

A speck of saliva flew from Ida's mouth onto Ester's lower lip. When Ida released Ester's arm and left the toilets, Ester wiped her mouth and reapplied her lipstick, but still she felt it there, the fleck of spit. In the hours which followed, Ester put her mouth to the rims of countless champagne glasses and wine glasses and shot glasses, but still she felt that spack of saliva clinging on. And even hours later, when Ester and Bernard were alone in bed and he was kissing her, all she could think about was Ida's spit on her lip, as if it were still there, pressed between her mouth and Bernard's like a cold sore. ~ Alison Moore

This isn't about you ... "
"Well, it should be!" he shouted, and I flinched. "Everything I do is about you, and I want the reverse to be true, too." I wiped more tears, my throat aching with words that would only make this worse.
"What, you need a reminder? That's what he was doing, right? And now you smell like him. You probably taste like him. You should taste like me ... "
He was on me before I could even catch my breath ... ~ Rachel Vincent

The trash bags are gone, the bar wiped clean. The lights have been hung; they line the stage and loop around the Snakehead, making the old axe glow. Stalled in the doorway, Lorca experiences a stomachache he can only call Christmas. ~ Marie-Helene Bertino

Jonny has a theory that South Africa are doomed to choke in every major tournament for the next fifty years as payment for apartheid. He also believes that England will spend centuries working off their colonial sins by performing miserably at sport. I then ask him why Australia, who wiped out generations of Aborigines, win everything in every sport, and he shuts up. ~ Shehan Karunatilaka

Peter the Great was probably the equal, in dedication, power and ruthlessness, of many of the most successful revolutionary or nationalist leaders. Yet he failed in his chief purpose, which was to turn Russia into a Western nation. And the reason he failed was that he did not infuse the Russian masses with some soul-stirring enthusiasm. He either did not think it necessary or did not know how to make of his purpose a holy cause. It is not strange that the Bolshevik revolutionaries who wiped out the last of the Czars and Romanovs should have a sense of kinship with Peter - a Czar and a Romanov. For his purpose is now theirs, and they hope to succeed where he failed. The Bolshevik revolution may figure in history as much an attempt to modernize a sixth of the world's surface as an attempt to build a Communist economy. The ~ Eric Hoffer

Gorillas are in danger of being wiped out by the Ebola virus. I feel like we have limited time to get to know them and understand them and they're going to disappear - that's terrifically sad. Wouldn't it be great if we could stop that? ~ Sara Gruen

And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do- and I think my parents may have accidentally given me this idea- and you do poorly, what then? It's over; you're wiped out. All those prophecies you heard in the dark have come true, and people can see the real you, see what a schmendrick you are, what a fraud. ~ Anne Lamott

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold ~ Neil Gaiman

He smiled at her as Julia threw a snowball at Calla that missed her by a mile. Grinning, Calla quickly armed herself and threw one at Julia; only it missed her too and hit Guthrie in the crotch. Good thing it was soft snow. He grinned and wiped off the snow, slowly, deliberately, wolfishly.
Calla looked like she could burst into flames, she was so red faced. He started laughing. ~ Terry Spear

Winters are a desolate time where all senses are wiped away, and here in Canada, this is especially true. All smells are sucked clean from the air, leaving only a harsh, icy crispness. Colours are stripped away, leaving a stark white landscape, a sky which stays black at night and gray in the day, a world of only three shades. Stay outside too long, and your hands will get so cold that they'll go numb and turn red, like the claws of a lobster. During a whiteout, even sight itself is reduced to nothingness. ~ Rebecca McNutt

He wiped sweat from his brow, drew a shaky breath. ~ Steven Erikson

We live in a time where we have more extinction happening on our planet than since the dinosaurs were wiped out 50 million years ago. ~ Jeff Corwin

Don't make a fuss about a world war. At most, people die ... Half the population wiped out - this happened quite a few times in Chinese history ... It's best if half the population is left, next best one-third ... ~ Mao Zedong

Blood pressure check!" The doorknob rattled, as if the nurse were intending just to walk in, but the lock held, thank God. The nurse knocked again.
"Oh, shit," Gina breathed, laughing as she scrambled off of him. She reached to remove the condom they'd just used, encountered . . . him, and met his eyes. But then she scooped her clothes off the floor and ran into the bathroom.
"Mr. Bhagat?" The nurse knocked on the door again. Even louder this time. "Are you all right?"
Oh, shit, indeed. "Come in," Max called as he pulled up the blanket and leaned on the button that put his bed back up into a sitting position. The same control device had a "call nurse" button as well as the clearly marked one that would unlock the door.
"It's locked," the nurse called back, as well he knew.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, as he wiped off his face with the edge of the sheet. Sweat much in bed, all alone, Mr. Bhagat? "I must've . . . Here, let me figure out how to . . ." He took an extra second to smooth his hair, his pajama top, and then, praying that the nurse had a cold and couldn't smell the scent of sex that lingered in the air, he hit the release.
"Please don't lock your door during the day," the woman scolded him as she came into the room, around to the side of his bed. It was Debra Forsythe, a woman around his age, whom Max had met briefly at his check-in. She had been on her way home to deal with some crisis with her kids, and hadn't been happy then, either. "And ~ Suzanne Brockmann

And so, Navani painted a prayer onto the stones themselves, sending her attendants for more ink. She paced off the size of the glyph as she continued its border, making it enormous, spreading her ink onto the tan rocks.
Soldiers gathered around, Sadeas stepping from his canopy, watching her paint, her back to the sun as she crawled on the ground and furiously dipped her brushpen into the ink jars. What was a prayer, if not creation? Making something where nothing existed. Creating a wish out of despair, a plea out of anguish. Bowing one's back before the Almighty, and forming humility from the empty pride of a human life.
Something from nothing. True creation.
Her tears mixed with the the ink. She went through four jars. She crawled, holding her safehand to the ground, brushing the stones and smearing ink on her cheeks when she wiped the tears. When she finally finished, she knelt back before a glyph twenty paces long, emblazoned as if in blood. The wet ink reflected sunlight, and she fired it with a candle; the ink was made to burn whether wet or dry. The flames burned across the length of the prayer, killing it and sending its soul to the Almighty. ~ Brandon Sanderson

In parting, I would remind you that Life is a checkerboard, and the player opposite you is time. If you hesitate before moving, or neglect to move promptly, your men will be wiped off the board by time. You are playing against a partner who will not tolerate decisions! ~ Napoleon Hill

[T]hat old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer. ~ Wallace Stegner

I loved you so much, that I thought you were the meaning of my life," Celia said, crying. "I thought that people were put on Earth to find other people, and I was put on Earth to find you. To find you, and touch your skin, and smell your breath, and hear all your thoughts. But I don't think that's true anymore." She wiped her eyes. "Because I don't want to be meant for someone like you. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

The man screamed, and screamed behind his mask, and the Bloody-Nine laughed, and twisted the blade. Logen might have pitied him, but Logen was far away and the Bloody-Nine had no more pity in him than the winter. Less even. He stabbed, and cut, and cut, and smiled, and the screams bubbled and died, and he let the corpse drop to the cold stones. His fingers were slick with blood and he wiped it on his clothes, on his arms, on his face - just as it should be. ~ Joe Abercrombie

I...I'm sorry," Kylie mumbled.
"Don't you even try to talk your way out of me being pissed!" Burnett growled. "Not a word!"
"I just..."
"That's two words and I said not one!" he snapped, and he swiped his hand through the air for emphasis.
Kylie bit down on her lip, and wouldn't you know it that's when the tears started flowing. Big, fat, and fast tears. She sniffled and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Her breath caught in her chest. But damn it. Why couldn't this have happened when she was alone?
"Those tears do not affect me, young lady!" He pointed a finger at her. While she couldn't hear his heart beat to the rhythm of a lie, she heard it in his voice.

***

"I just..."
"Did I say you could talk?" he asked. He did three more pacing laps, as if working off steam, before he looked at her again. "Where were you going, Kylie?"
When she just looked at him, he bit out, "Answer me."
"You said I couldn't talk. ~ C.C. Hunter

The Romans were not wiped out by the invasions of the barbarians, nor by the Christian virus, but by a more subtle evil, boredom. ~ Emil M. Cioran

I don't know. How can you know? I…I'm a monster. When I'm hungry, I might do anything."
"Oh no, of course I couldn't possibly understand you." Violet's shadowed face seemed to be wearing a grim and serious smile. "I know, you woke up one day and found out that you couldn't be the person you remembered being, the little girl everybody expected you to be. You just weren't her any more, and there was nothing you could do about it. So your family decided you were a monster and turned on you." Violet sighed, staring out into the darkness.

"Believe me, I do understand that. And let me tell you - from one monster to another - that just because somebody tells you you're a monster, it doesn't mean you are.

"just now you told me what you did because you want me to stop you from eating Pen. If you were a real monster, you wouldn't have done that, would you?"

Trista's eyes stung, and she wiped strands of cobweb away with her sleeve.

"Idiot," added Violet, for good measure. ~ Frances Hardinge

This fight was old, Shadow thought, older than even Mr. Alice knew, and he was thinking that even as the creature's talons raked his chest. It was the fight of man against monster, and it was old as time: it was Theseus battling the Minotaur, it was Beowulf and Grendel, it was the fight of every hero who had ever stood between the firelight and the darkness and wiped the blood of something inhuman from his sword. ~ Neil Gaiman

Jesmyn Ward is an alchemist. She transmutes pain and loss into gold. Men We Reaped illustrates hardships but thankfully, vitally, it's just as clear about the humor, the intelligence, the tenderness, the brilliance of the folks in DeLisle, Mississippi. A community that's usually wiped off the literary map can't be erased when it's in a book this good. ~ Victor LaValle

He took another swallow of beer. "Are things as bad as they seem? Or have I just gotten old like my da, and now everything tastes a little bitter compared to when I was a boy?" Kote wiped at the bar for a long moment, as if reluctant to speak. "I think things are usually bad one way or another," he said. "It might be that only us older folk can see it." Graham began to nod, then frowned. "Except you're not old, are you? I forget that most times." He looked the red-haired man up and down. "I mean, you move around old, and you talk old, but you're not, are you? I'll bet you're half my age." He squinted at the innkeeper. "How old are you, anyway?" The innkeeper gave a tired smile. "Old enough to feel old. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

If she could've found the will power to speak, the brain cells to construct thought, she would've told Clay he was a god. It was a good thing she was too wiped out or he would never let her forget it ~ Nalini Singh

Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be - you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean. Count yourself lucky - God holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from Him. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Jack knelt at the floor in front of her. "You did so great. Cutting off the power was the smartest thing anyone could've done in that situation."

She wiped her eyes. "Right, I'm such a hero. You dove off a thirty-five-foot staircase. I turned off a light switch."

"It . . . was a very key light switch. ~ Julie James

They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way. ~ John Milton

What's your name?'

She planted one elbow on the stretch of counter Zuri had wiped so she could lean closer and draw out both syllables. 'Savine.'

'That's a lovely name.'

'Oh, if you enjoy the tip, you'll go mad for the whole thing.'

'That so?' he purred at her. 'How does it go?'

'Savine… dan…' And she leaned even closer to deliver the punchline. 'Glokta.'

If a name had been a knife and she had cut his throat with hers, the blood could not have drained more quickly from his face. He gave a strangled cough, took a step back and nearly fell over one of his own barrels. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Even though I knew I had a snowball's chance in Hades with you." She sniffed and wiped a tear with the back of her hand. "I just ... I just wanted to give you something pure. It's all I have. Had. Everything else about me is tainted by demon blood. But I had that. And it's always been yours."
-Gem to Kynan
Excerpt From: Larissa Ione. "Desire Unchained." iBooks. ~ Larissa Ione

Star"

Tony went to fight in Belfast
Rudi stayed at home to starve
I could make it all worthwhile
as a rock & roll star
Bevan tried to change the nation
Sonny wants to turn the world, well he can tell you that
he tried
I could make a transformation as a rock & roll star

[CHORUS (x2)]
So inviting - so enticing to play the part
I could play the wild mutation
as a rock & roll star
I could do with the money
I'm so wiped out with things as they are
I'd send my photograph to my honey - and I'd c'mon like
a regular superstar

I could fall asleep at night
as a rock & roll star
I could fall in love all right
as a rock & roll star ~ David Bowie

I didn't want to cry in front of you."
He wiped away the tears with the pad of his thumb.
"I want you to cry only in front of me. ~ Robyn Carr

Obama has now lost his trustworthiness. He has lost any hope of majority support from the American people for his agenda. Obamacare has wiped that out. It really has. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Besides," said Suriyawong. "This was not a rescue operation."
"What was it, target practice? Chinese skeet?"
"An offer of transportation to an invited guest of the Hegemon," said Suriyawong. "And the loan of a knife."
Achilles held up the bloody thing, dangling it from the point. "Yours?" he asked.
"Unless you want to clean it," said Suriyawong.
Achillese handed it to him. Suriyawong took out his cleaning kit and wiped down the blade, then began to polish it.
"You wanted me to die," said Achilles quietly.
"I expected you to solve your own problems," said Suriyawong. ~ Orson Scott Card

She had witnessed the world's most beautiful things, and allowed herself to grow old and unlovely. She had felt the heat of a leviathan's roar, and the warmth within a cat's paw. She had conversed with the wind and had wiped soldier's tears. She had made people see, she'd seen herself in the sea. Butterflies had landed on her wrists, she had planted trees. She had loved, and let love go. So she smiled. ~ Sonya Hartnett

He watched her as she carried the stone over to one of the walls and set it down. She exhaled and wiped her brow. Then she glared at him.
He smiled - one of his best, he thought. "You ought to bend your legs when you lift the stones," he called out. "It's better for your back."
"It's better for your back," she mimicked under her breath, "lazy, good-for-nothing, stupid little - "
"Excuse me?"
"Thank you for your advice." Her voice was sweetness personified. ~ Julia Quinn

I'm killing Zil. Clear enough? I'm putting him down."
"Whoa, man," Edilio said. "That's not what we do. We're the good guys, right?"
"There has to be an end to it, Edilio." He wiped soot from his face with the back of his hand, but smoke had filled his eyes with tears. "I can't keep doing it and never reaching the end."
"It's not your call anymore," Edilio said.
Sam turned a steely glare on him. "You too? Now you're siding with Astrid?"
"Man, there have to be limits," Edilio said.
Sam stood staring down the street. The fire was out of control. All of Sherman was burning, from one end to the other. If they were lucky it wouldn't jump to another street. But one way or the other, Sherman was lost.
"We should be looking to save any kids that are trapped," Edilio said.
Sam didn't answer.
"Sam," Edilio pleaded.
"I begged Him to let me die, Edilio. I prayed to the God who Astrid likes so much and I said, God, if You're there, kill me. Don't let me feel this pain anymore."
Edilio said nothing.
"You don't understand, Edilio," Sam said so softly, he doubted Edilio could hear him over the roar and crackle of the fire raging all around them. "You can't do anything else with people like this. You have to kill them all. Zil. Caine. Drake. You just have to kill them. So right now, I'm starting with Zil and his crew," Sam said. "You can come with me or not. ~ Michael Grant

The efficient orgasm is the most productive moment of the day, because, apocalyptically, it has wiped the slate clean, and no one will ever know about it. What are you going to do now? Most of the time you could go back to reading. Some of the time you fantasize about a ragtag group of strangers thrown together by circumstance who go on a quest for some orgasm big enough to leave them wanting something different than they wanted before.

Like what? Gross food? Ugly stuff? Feeling like crap? Not understanding anything?

All you do is lie in bed with no underwear, trying to think of something bigger and better. ~ Lucy Corin

You know what I think the trick to dealing with family is? I've been thinking about this a lot lately."

"What?" I said, spreading strawberry jam on my toast.

"Marrying your best friend." He wiped his mouth with a napkin. "You marry your best friend, and at family gatherings you deal with your shitty relatives together. You laugh about it and have each other's backs. Share looks and text each other from across the room when everyone else is being an asshole. And nobody else really matters because you have your own universe."

He held my eyes for a moment. "That's what I want. I want someone to be my universe."

He'd have no problem finding that. No problem at all. Josh could have any woman he wanted. After all, he was the sun. Warm and vital. He would be the center of a big family one day, just like he wanted, and they'd all adore him.

And I was just some passing comet. Momentarily distracting. Useless and unimportant. I was nice to look at, fun to observe, but I'd never give life or be the center of anything.

I'd streak through and be gone, and Josh would forget me before we knew it. ~ Abby Jimenez

Hurt of this magnitude is like menopause," Phyllis tells me. I've just wiped my nose with one of the hats. She takes it from me and hands me a tissue. "Comes in hot flashes. Just when you feel like you can't take it anymore, it passes for a bit. But it comes back, boy does it. ~ Tarryn Fisher

Art can heal it if art is allowed to exist. And if art is slowly wiped off the face of the planet, then what tools do we have to reach people, to appeal to them and all of their senses? ~ Madonna Ciccone

Nykyrian shifted to one side of the door frame. "Stop stalling, asshole. Do you honestly think I'd be stupid enough to stand here until your partner comes up behind me?" He snapped his fingers.
An unconscious man was shoved through the door. Pitala cursed.
"I really hate taking out the trash." Syn joined Nykyrian as he wiped his hands together.
-Nykyrian, Pitala, & Syn ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Tabula rasa... time to hacer borrón y cuenta nueva, wipe the board clean," the singer chants.
Wipe the board clean? I feel like my board is too clean, perpetually wiped bare. What I want is the opposite: a messy scrawl, constellations of indelible things that can't ever be washed away. ~ Gayle Forman

You took my soul and wiped all the dirt away, sweetheart. You cured me of all that ached. ~ Shelly Crane

Chronicler wiped the nib of his pen clean, "It's not really my place to comment on the story," he said placidly. "If you say you saw a dragon ... " He shrugged. Kvothe gave him a profoundly disappointed look. "This from the author of The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus? This from Devan Lochees, the great debunker?" "This from Devan Lochees who agreed not to interrupt or change a single word of the story he is recording." Chronicler lay his pen down and massaged his hand. "Because those were the only conditions under which he could get access to a story he very much desired. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

will triumph over evil, and that, in the end, truth will be revealed and the story will come full circle. It all happens within a few pages, and it all happens on this earth. But we do not live in Hans Christian Andersen's world. We live in this world. As Christians, we know there will come a day when all tears will be wiped away, when peace and joy will be the only songs we know, but we have a long road to walk until that Day of the Lord. For the moment, we have to live with one another, with all the good and bad that come with it. The sad truth is that we will let one another down. We will bruise each other. We will fail. So how should we live in the midst of this reality? ~ Sheila Walsh

It can't be good news," Leif said. "I'd doubt you would brave the weather just to say hello."
"You opened the door before I could knock," I said. "You must know something's up."
Leif wiped the rain from his face. "I smelled you coming."
"Smelled?"
"You reek of Lavender. Do you bathe in Mother's perfume or just wash your cloak with it?" he teased.
"How mundane. I was thinking of something a little more magical. ~ Maria V. Snyder

They cooked and washed dishes and scrubbed and mopped and dusted and wiped and cleaned the apartment from crack to crevice back to crack. ~ Matthew Aaron Goodman

Clinging to the rags I had left, I gazed out upon the full breadth of the Furnace and shook at what I saw.
The world had been wiped clean of all trace of humanity. Sharp sandstone peaks protruded into the gray sky like a humped backbone, spilling into vast seas of sand on either side. Boulders and driftwood, the castaways of some bygone mountain, cast the only disruption upon the land. And I realized - no sun crossed the sky; there was only constant, lingering grayness. ~ Heather Heffner

JANUARY 24 He Will Reward You So repent (change your mind and purpose); turn around and return [to God], that your sins may be erased (blotted out, wiped clean), that times of refreshing (of recovering from the effects of heat, of reviving with fresh air) may come from the presence of the Lord. ACTS 3:19 Success principles alone will not work in your life if you don't spend time with God, allowing His Holy Spirit to be your Counselor and to give you revelation and understanding of what to do each day. But if you flow in God's plan, you will learn to stop trying to figure out how everything will work together for your good. Learn to seek God's face and not His hand all the time. Then keep your hands open and be ready to receive from Him. God is good; you can trust what He speaks to your heart to do. ~ Joyce Meyer

She stood back and wiped the sweat-sting from her eyes. The air was clean. Her hands brown with dirt. Pride surged through her, raw and immense; she had believed happiness to be an absence - of fear, of pain, of grief - but here it roared in her as powerful as any sadness. ~ Anthony Marra

We're bankrupting our country and we have an empire that we're trying to defend which costs us $1 trillion a year. And the standard of living is going down today. It's going down and the middle class is hurting because of the monetary policy. When you destroy a currency, the middle class gets wiped out. ~ Ron Paul

After the enemies with guns have been wiped out, there will still be enemies without guns; they are bound to struggle desperately against us, and we must never regard these enemies lightly. If we do nor now raise and understand the problem in this way, we shall commit the gravest mistakes. ~ Mao Zedong

Maybe this is as near as we can come to forgiveness. Not the past wiped away, nothing undone, but some willingness in the present, some recognition and embrace and slowing down. ~ David Vann

Non-violence ... is the only thing that the atom bomb cannot destroy. I did not move a muscle when I first heard that the atom bomb had wiped out Hiroshima. On the contrary, I said to myself, Unless now the world adopts non-violence, it will spell certain suicide for mankind. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Gray froze as Miss Turner emerged from the hold. For weeks, she'd plagued him-by day, he suffered glimpses of her beauty; by night, he was haunted by memories of her touch. And just when he thought he'd finally wrangled his desire into submission, today she'd ruined everything.
She'd gone and changed her dress.
Gone was that serge shroud, that forbidding thundercloud of a garment that had loomed in his peripheral vision for weeks. Today, she wore a cap-sleeved frock of sprigged muslin.
She stepped onto the deck, smiling face tilted to the wind. A flower opening to greet the sun. She bobbed on her toes, as though resisting the urge to make a girlish twirl. The pale, sheer fabric of her dress billowed and swelled in the breeze, pulling the undulating contour of calf, thigh, hip into relief.
Gray thought she just might be the loveliest creature he'd ever seen.
Therefore, he knew he ought to look away.
He did, for a moment. He made an honest attempt to scan the horizon for clouds. He checked the hour on his pocket watch, wound the small knob one, two, three, four times. He wiped a bit of salt spray from its glass face. He thought of England. And France, and Cuba, and Spain. He remembered his brother, his sister, and his singularly ugly Aunt Rosamond, on whom he hadn't clapped eyes in decades. And all this Herculean effort resulting in nothing but a fine sheen of sweat on his brow and precisely thirty seconds' delay in the inevitable.
He looked a ~ Tessa Dare

MURDERED The writing continued until the driver's side glass was clear, entirely swept clean by an invisible finger, until there were so many words that none of them could be read. Until it was only a window into an empty car with the memory of a burger on the passenger seat. 'Noah,' Gansey said, 'I'm so sorry.' Blue wiped away a tear. 'Me too.' Stepping forward, leaning over the hood of the car, Ronan pressed his fingers to the windshield, and while they watched, he wrote: REMEMBERED. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Bridget wiped her tears vigorously on her apron and said, Must get on with the tea. ~ Kate Atkinson

Bakers get excited over aprons. I love the soft cotton ones with pockets like my gramma and mom wore. They always kept a hankie tucked in one pocket, which wasn't sanitary, but was comforting to the child who needed a tear or nose wiped. ~ Regina Brett

I wish Bob Ewell wouldn't chew tobacco. was all Atticus said about it. According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, however, Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him ... Miss Stephanie said Atticus didn't bat an eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there and let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to repeat. ~ Harper Lee

Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of. ~ Stephen Hawking

Involvement in Afghanistan, I thought, was totally warranted. We were attacked, we attacked back, but after six months of being in Afghanistan, I thought we had pretty well effectively wiped out al Qaeda. ~ Gary Johnson

Historians and paleontologists have a great rivalry," said Tetsuo. "Most contact missions arrive too late, after history has ended. The people we wanted to contact have wiped themselves out. The historians have to put on pith helmets and learn how to dig up fossils." "But you're not fossils," said Ashley. "And so, the historians win!" said Tetsuo. "This time, the paleontologists have to learn about inefficient hierarchical systems of social organization! ~ Leonard Richardson

Here's what I know about Cole," Jeremy said. Punctuated by the silence, it sounded like he was in a pulpit. "Cole's religion is debunking the impossible. He doesn't believe in impossible. He doesn't believe in no. Cole's religion is waiting for someone to tell him it can't be done so he can do it. Anything. Doesn't matter what that something is, so long as it can't be done. Here's an origin story for you. In the beginning of time there was an ocean and a void, and God made the ocean into the world and he made the void into Cole."

Victor laughed.

"I thought you said you were a Buddhist," Jan said.

"Part-time," Jeremy replied.

Debunking the impossible.

Now, the pines stretched up so high on either side of the road that it felt like I was tunneling to the middle of the world. Mercy Falls was an unnumbered stretch of miles behind me.

I was sixteen again, and the road unwound in front of me, endless possibilities. I felt wiped clean, empty, forgiven. I could drive forever, anywhere. I could be anyone. But I felt the pull of Boundary Wood around me and, for once, the business of being Cole St. Clair no longer felt like such a curse. I had a purpose, a goal, and it was the impossible: finding a cure.

I was so close. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

When an entire segment of the world is burned and reduced to a lawless battleground for thugs and mercenaries, a land where government does not exist, where the slate of history is being wiped out and hope has drowned in gallons of innocent blood, the only respite comes in the form of the open seas and what lies beyond the horizon. So ships are boarded and pain is tolerated just a little while longer. ~ Aysha Taryam

Brianna! Is Sam okay?" Astrid cried.
"No. Drake tore him up." She wanted to sound tough, but the sobs came bubbling up and overtook her. "Oh, God, Astrid, he's hurt so bad."
Astrid gasped and covered her hand with her mouth. Brianna put her arms around Astrid and sobbed into her hair.
"Is he going to die?" Astrid asked, voice wobbly.
"No, I don't think so," Brianna said. She stood back and wiped her tears. "I gave him something for the pain. But he's messed up, Astrid. ~ Michael Grant

The world can seem very chaotic these days. Humankind is constantly changing, and evolving. Advances in science have made it possible to travel thousands of miles in a matter of hours. We can keep in touch with people we care about and even with the world at large with the push of a button. Many of the diseases that plagued humankind for centuries have been wiped out. Yet there is still poverty. There is still famine. There is still disease. There is still war. There is still injustice. ~ The Prophet Of Life

Get down,' Bunty says grimly. 'Mummy's thinking.' (Although what Mummy's actually doing is wondering what it would be like if her entire family was wiped out and she could start again.) ~ Kate Atkinson

When he was finished, he set his plate down, looked at me, and raised an eyebrow.
I leaned forward and whispered angrily, "I am not going to sit on your lap, so don't get your hopes up, Mister."
He still waited until I picked up a fork and took a few bites. I speared a bite of macadamia nut crusted ruby snapper and said, "Whew. Time's up. Isn't it? The clock is ticking. You must be sweating it, huh? I mean, you could turn any second."
He just took a bite of curried lamb and then some saffron rice and sat there chewing as cool as a cucumber.
I watched him closely for a full two minutes and then folded up my napkin.
"Okay, I give. Why are you acting so smug and confident? When are you going to tell me what's going on?"
He wiped his mouth carefully and took a sip of water. "What's going on, my prema, is that the curse has been lifted."
My mouth dropped open. "What? If it was lifted, why were you a tiger for the last two days?"
"Well, to be clear, the curse is not completely gone. I seem to have been granted a partial removal of the curse."
"Partial? Partial meaning what, exactly?"
"Partial, meaning a certain number of hours per day. Six hours to be exact."
I recited the prophecy in my mind and remembered that there were four sides to the monolith, and four times six was…"Twenty-four."
He paused. "Twenty-four what?"
"Well, six hours makes sense because there are four gifts to obtain for Durga and four sides of the m ~ Colleen Houck

On present-day Earth we have the most Christ-like nation in human history, a civilization built on loving kindness and demilitarization. They are being wiped off the face of their homeland. Well, at least the Chinese government isn't blaming Christ or Buddha for their actions against Tibet! But many savage pillagers throughout the past two thousand years have, and the Romans of a thousand years ago fall into that category. Within five hundred years they erased nearly all the nature-based, matriarchal tribes in what we now know as Europe. The invaders falsified history in order to justify their greed. Harmless facts and beautiful rituals were twisted to appear Satanic. Love of the environment and its animals and plants, love of healing modalities that modern day health professionals are now searching frantically to recover, were spin-doctored into demented superstition and turned outlaw. ~ Doug "Ten" Rose

[I]n the years that followed the persecutions, Christianity came to see itself, with great pride, as a persecuted Church. Its greatest heroes were not those who did good deeds but those who died in the most painful way. If you were willing to die an excruciating end in the arena then, whatever your previous holiness or lack thereof, you went straight to heaven: martyrdom wiped out all sins on the point of death.
As well as getting there faster, martyrs enjoyed preferential terms in paradise, getting to wear the much-desired martyr's crown. Tempting celestial terms were offered: it was said that the scripture promised 'multiplication, even to a hundred times, of brothers, children, parents, land and homes'. Precisely how this celestial sum had been calculated is not clear but the general principle was: those who died early, publicly and painfully would be best rewarded. In many of the martyr tales the driving force is less that the Romans want to kill – and more that the Christians want to die. Why wouldn't they? Paradoxically, martyrdom held considerable benefits for those willing to take it on. One was its egalitarian entry qualifications. As George Bernard Shaw acidly observed over a millennium later, martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.
More than that, in a socially and sexually unequal era it was a way in which women and even slaves might shine. Unlike most positions of power in the highly socially stratified late Roman Empire, this ~ Catherine Nixey

For no reason at all, I thought of New Year's Eve, when all those people crowd into Times Square and scream like jackals as the lighted ball slides down the pole, ready to shed its thin party glare on three hundred and sixty-five new days in this best of all possible worlds. I have always wondered what it would be like to be caught in one of those crowds, screaming and not able to hear your own voice, your individuality momentarily wiped out and replaced with the blind empathic overslop of the crowd's lurching, angry anticipation, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder with no one in particular. ~ Richard Bachman

Why books?"
Her brows rose. "I beg your pardon?"
"Why are they your vice?"
She set her plate down and wiped her hand on her skirts before reaching for the top volume on a stack of small, leather bound books nearby and extending it to him. "Go on."
He took it. "Now what?"
"Smell it." He tilted his head. She couldn't help but smile. "Do it."
He lifted it to his nose. Inhaled.
"Not like that," she said. "Really give it a smell."
He raised one brow but did as he was told.
"What do you smell?" Sophie asked.
"Leather and ink?"
She shook her head. "Happiness. That's what books smells like. Happiness. That's why I always wanted to have a book shop. What better life than to trade in happiness? ~ Sarah MacLean

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

'You remember asking me if I'd ever begged?'
I wiped the corner of my eyes, sniffed. 'Is this about to get kinky?' ~ Josh Lanyon

Go to sleep, little girl. I'm fucking wiped, I rode all day to buy your ass back."

Her skin bristled.

Not from anger.

Oh, no.

She turned hot so fast at his words, it was a wonder her hair didn't catch fire, she put her hands up to her cheeks to feel the warmth.

He owned her.

Why did that archaic thought appeal?

She should be objecting, right?

It was barbaric to be owned by another person.

Only, her racing veins didn't seem to mind one bit.

"I am not property," she croaked an attempt at a protest, holding both hands over her beating heart. ~ V. Theia

Her question was clear-
"Father, where does the Loss reside?"
In the sighs?
Cheeks with tears wiped?
A lost appetite?
Owning a room confined?
Or in the smiles all falsified?

Thus, the Father decide,
It is no matter to hide, he replied-
"I think its deep inside,
Probably,
In the layers of your soul,
Where the body provides it,
Ample food to be-
Magnified, multiplied, intensified.
But once you clarify,
That its not to be occupied inside,
It starves of supplies,
And dies.

So child, when there is loss,
Make sure you refuse to invite it inward,
And absolutely never make it your lifelong parasite. ~ Jasleen Kaur Gumber

Good fathers, and by that I mean real fathers who are there, have the ability to change almost every social problem we now find ourselves facing. I'd be assumptive enough to say that there isn't a single type of crime or a single problem so big that it couldn't be fixed or wiped out if fathers would just step up. ~ Dan Pearce

One late autumn night, the disciple awoke crying. So the master asked the disciple, "Did you have a nightmare?" "No." "Did you have a sad dream?" "No," said the disciple. "I had a sweet dream." "Then why are you crying so sadly?" The disciple wiped his tears away and quietly answered, "Because the dream I had can't come true. ~ Sun-Woo

You told me once you believed in God. The old man waved his hand. Maybe, he said. I got no reason to think he believes in me. Oh I'd like to see him for a minute if I could. What would you say to him? Well, I think I'd just tell him. I'd say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there's just one thing I'd like to know. And he'll say: What's that? And then I'm goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldnt put any part of it together. Suttree smiled. What do you think he'll say? The ragpicker spat and wiped his mouth. I dont believe he can answer it, he said. I dont believe there is a answer. ~ Cormac McCarthy

voice bringing my defenses down. I'd never have expected it a year ago, but now . . . after seeing him lose everything to follow his heart, I could. I could accept his comfort, show my vulnerability - even if it might not last. The undeniable truth was, he was meant for better things than me. One day Ellasbeth would have him, and I'd be left with the memory of who he had wanted to be. "Rachel?" But I'd be damned if I didn't take what I could of the time we had. Catching my tears, I wiped my face, giving Trent a thankful smile as I pulled back and looked for Bis. The little gargoyle had his wings draped around him, looking like a devil himself. "Bis? Can you jump her to Trent's? ~ Kim Harrison

We torture and kill two billion sentient living beings every week. 10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one, and we are now facing the sixth mass extinction in cosmological history. If any other organism did this, a biologist would consider them a virus. ~ Philip Wollen

If I were a poet, that's what I'd write about. People who worked in the middle of the night. Men who loaded trains, emergency room nurses with their gentle hands. Night clerks in hotels, cabdrivers on graveyard, waitresses in all-night coffee shops. They knew the world, how precious it was when a person remembered your name, the comfort of a rhetorical question, "How's it going, how's the kids?" They knew how long the night was. They knew the sound life made as it left. It rattled, like a slamming screen door in the wind. Night workers lived without illusions, they wiped dreams off counters, they loaded freight. They headed back to the airport for one last fare. ~ Janet Fitch

I have met so many people who had their life savings wiped out, who lost their homes, who are barely back with their heads above water.This was a disaster for our country, and we can never let that happen again. ~ Hillary Clinton

Matthias was in the dark. And it wasn't the kind of dark that came with a room that didn't have any lights on or when you were walking around at night in the country. This was not even the kind you got when you shut your eyes and wrapped your head in a blanket.

This was the one that seeped in through your skin and filled the spaces between your molecules, the one that polluted your flesh into a permanent state of rotting, the one that wiped clean your past and your future, suspending you in a choking, adhesive solution of sorrow and despair.

He was not alone in this horrible prison.

As he writhed in the weightless void, others did the same, their voices mixing with his own as pleas escaped from cracked lips and the endless begging for mercy rose and fell like the breathing of a great beast. From time to time, he was chosen for special attention, clawed monsters with fanged maws latching on, yanking and pulling. The wounds they imparted always healed as quickly as they were wrought, providing an ever-fresh canvas for their masticating artwork.

Time had no meaning; nor did age. And he knew he was never getting out.

This was his due.

This was his eternal payment for the way he had lived his life: He had earned this place in Hell through his sins upon the earth, and yet still, he argued the unfairness to the others he was trapped with. Tough debate, though. There was little on the good side to support his bid for f ~ J.R. Ward

Learning was so dangerous: for how could one tell in advance, while still ignorant, whether a thing could ever be unlearned or forgotten, or if, once known and named, it would invalidate by its significance the whole of one's former life, all of those years wiped out, convicted at one blow, retrospectively darkened by one sudden light? ~ Margaret Drabble

Why haven't you told me the truth about you and Archer?"
"We were just friends," I said. "How many times do I have to say it?"
When he didn't say anything, I rolled my eyes. "Okay,so I liked him. I had a crush on him,and-" I wasn't sure if the heat in my face was from embarrassment or anger. "And yes, one time we kissed. But it was just the once,and about ten seconds afterward,I found out he was an Eye."
Dad nodded. "And that's it.That's the whole story."
Why oh why wasn't there a giant hole in the floor that I could plummet through, perferably to my death? "That,that's it."
"Well,that's something," Dad said, running a hand through his hair. "At some point, I want you to add that to your original statement."
We were quiet for a long time before I wiped my sweaty palms on my dress and said, "Is there anything else horrible happening that I need to know about?"
Dad gave a humorless laugh as he ushered me toward the door. "I believe that covers all the current horror. ~ Rachel Hawkins