Afore Quotes & Sayings

As I said, I don't expect you to understand - "
"And I don't," he cut in. "Ye ask how I can live a life that I know will end with the hangman's noose. Well, at least I am alive. Ye might as well have climbed inside yer husband's coffin and let yerself be buried with his corpse."
Her hand flashed out before she'd thought about it, the smack against his cheek loud in the little courtyard.
Silence had her eyes locked with Michael's, her chest rising and falling swiftly, but she was aware that Bert and Harry had looked up. Even Mary and Lad had paused in their play.
Without taking his gaze from hers, Michael reached out and grasped her hand. He raised her hand to his lips and softly kissed the center of her palm.
He looked at her, her hand still at his lips. "Don't take to yer grave afore yer time, Silence, m'love. — Elizabeth Hoyt

There's nowt to know. A miserable caulker. But you, you're different, and you'll be grown and gone afore I know." He stared from the window. Sleet splashed down onto the pebbledash outside. "And this is hardly a place that'll draw you back," he said. — David Almond

Beguildy looked at me over the rim of a great measure of mead. 'Saddle your dreams afore you ride 'em, my wench,' he said. — Mary Webb

So furiously each other did assayle,
As if their soules they would attonce haue rent
Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle
Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent;
That all the ground with purple bloud was sprent,
And all their armours staynd with bloudie gore,
Yet scarcely once to breath would they relent,
So mortall was their malice and so sore,
Become of fayned friendship which they vow'd afore. — Edmund Spenser

Let pride go afore, shame will follow after. — George Chapman

Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind. — William Shakespeare

I've had some mighty mean moments afore I kem to this spot,
Lost on the plains in '50, drowned almost, and shot;
But out on this alkali desert, a hunting a crazy wife,
Was ra'ly as on-satis-factory as anything in my life. — Bret Harte

Whyle I was abowte to chaunge myn olde lyff
What sorowe I suffred, dyseese, angre and stryff,
Cracchynge myn here, my chekys all totare,
Wrythynge my fyngres for angwysshe and care,
Watrynge the erthe with my byttre salte teres
That the crye of my syghes ascended to Goddys eres,
My knees with myn handys grasped togedyre soore,
And yitt I stode the same man I was afore
Tyl a depe profounde remembraunce att the laste
Hadd all my wrecchednesse afore myn eyn caste — Petrarch

Ye've done that afore."
Raul spat. "I've done most things before. And some of them twice. And three times a night with your sister. — Robert Lyndon

Joan Durbeyfield always manged to find consolation somewhere: 'Well, as one of the genuine stock, she ought to make her way with 'en, if she plays her trump car aright. And if he don't marry her afore he will after. For that he's all afire wi' love for her any eye can see.'
'What's her trump card? Her d'Urberville blood, you mean?'
'No, stupid; her face - as 'twas mine. — Thomas Hardy

It was like that afore you got here, it's like that now, and it's going to be like that when you and me are gone, departed and left, and so there is only one rule, swing with it and smile. — David Halberstam

A wee beverage afore the next dance?"
Her green eyes widened mischievously as her tongue slipped to the corner of her mouth. "Yes, indeed." She took the goblet and drank a healthy tot.
Before she downed it all, he stopped her. "Ye might want to ebb your thirst... for I have plans involving the both of us this night, and it will be all the more fun if ye are awake to enjoy it. — Amy Jarecki

As for bread, I count that for nothin'. We always have bread and potatoes enough; but I hold a family to be in a desperate way when the mother can see the bottom of the pork barrel. Give me children that's raised on good sound pork afore all the game in the country. Game's good as a relish and so's bread; but pork is the staff of life ... My children I calkerlate to bring up on pork with just as much bread and butter as they want. — James F. Cooper

Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babies; they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at. It's God A'mighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep. — George Eliot

My God!" Amaury glared resentfully at the armed men surrounding his own as Castle Eberhart came into view. "See you the gall of the woman?"
Blake hid a smile an shrugged. "'Twould seem your bride would have you safely delivered."
"Safely delivered?" Grimacing,he shook his head. "She sends her man out to fetch me as if I am a stray cow."
"Surely she would not send so many for a cow?"
Amaury glared at his laughing friend.
Blake shrugged. "Well,I have said it afore and-"
"If you say once more that I should refuse to marry her,I will strike you down right here."
"You may try," Blake allowed with a small smile. — Lynsay Sands

She deliberated too much afore making decisions; he acted on instinct. He liked Oreos, she preferred pasta worms. — Sandra Hill

She swallowed, watching as the servants and Harry and Bert trooped out of the room. Lad, apparently not the brightest dog in the world, sat down next to Mickey O'Connor and leaned against his leg.
Mr. O'Connor looked at the dog, looked at the damp spot growing on his breeches where the dog was leaning, and sighed. "I find me life is not as quiet as it used to be afore ye came to me palace, Mrs. Hollingbrook."
Silence lifted her chin. "You're a pirate, Mr. O'Connor. I cannot believe your life was ever very quiet."
He gave her an ironic look. "Aye, amazin', isn't it? Yet since yer arrival me servants no longer obey me and I return home to find me kitchen flooded." He crossed to a cupboard and took down a china teapot, a tin of tea, and a teacup. "And me dog smells like a whorehouse."
Silence glanced guiltily at Lad. "The only soap we could find was rose scented. — Elizabeth Hoyt

One thing, though," Qhuinn murmured.
"What?"
The voice that came out his throat was unlike anything he'd ever heard from himself before. "If any guy breaks your heart or treats you like shit, I will bust him apart with my bare hands and leave his broken, bloody body for the sun."
Blay's laughter rumbled around the tiled walls. "Of course you will
"
"I'm dead fucking serious."
Blay's blue eyes shot over his shoulder.
"If there are any who dare to hurt you," Qhuinn growled in the Old Language, "I shall see them staked afore me and shall leave their bodies in ruin. — J.R. Ward

I'm uncommon fond of reading, too."

"Are you, Joe?"

"On-common. Give me," said Joe, "a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!" he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, "when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, 'Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,' how interesting reading is!"

I derived from this, that Joe's education, like Steam, was yet in its infancy. — Charles Dickens

We had different lives. We come from different places."
"Surely ye do. And you got different bodies, too. That's what marriage is about, Meggie-gal, making differences intertwine into something whole and new."
Meggie didn't want to argue. "He didn't love me, Pa," she said.
"I'll believe that when I see coons a-taking up farming," the old man answered. He raked his hair with his hands helplessly. "What do ye think love is, Meggie. Do you think it's heart pounding and breath stealing and verse reciting?" he asked. "Yes, ma'am, there is some of that involved, but mostly love is quiet and caring and friendlylike. It's wanting to tell that person something afore you whisper it to another soul. It's not being alone. — Pamela Morsi

You are an impertinent wench! Do you not know the Black Lion eats three girls such as you each day afore dinner?" Oblivious to the staring people around them, she put a finger on his lower lip. "I do not find that a horrible way to die at all," she said gently. — Jude Deveraux

It's them as take advantage that get advantage I' this world, I think: folks have to wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em. — George Eliot

I sells ladies fings, and vis nun, she comes up to me stall an' afore you can blink an eye, she picks up a couple of bread an' cheeses, tucks 'em in 'er petticoats, an' is off round the Jack Horner, dahn ve frog an' toad, quick as shit off a stick. I couldn't Adam an' Eve it, bu' vats wot she done. When I tells me carvin' knife wot I seen, she calls me an 'oly friar, an' says she'll land me one on me north and south if I calls Sister Monica Joan a tea-leaf. Very fond of Sister, she is. So I never says nuffink to no one, like. — Jennifer Worth

As they walked, the subtle lamplight of a dirigible washed over them. Finley glanced up, watching the light grow closer, slowly descending from the sky in a whirl of propellers as the ship made its way into the London air dock just a few miles away. How amazing it must be to float so high, to travel so quickly.
Dandy followed her gaze, but they didn't stop walking. "I was up in one of them flyers once," he told her. "I climbed over the rail and hung on to one of the ropes. Freeing it was. I almost let go."
She whipped her head around to gape at him. "The fall would kill you."
He smiled ever so slightly. "Not afore I flew. Worse ways to go. — Kady Cross

Where are you going?" she called after him.
"Dinner!" he yelled back, not turning. "I best eat somethin' afore I decide t'devour ye instead! — Selena Kitt

Tell me something," Xcor drawled.
"Yes?"
"Is his piggish head still attached to that weak little body of his?"
Assail chuckled. "No."
"Do you know that is among my favorite ways of killing?"
"A warming for me, Xcor?
...
"No," he declared. "Just something we have in common. Fare thee well, Assail, for what is left of this night."
"Yourself as well. And in the words of our mutual acquaintance, I must needs go. Afore I am forced to slaughter the doggen butler who is pounding, at this very instant, upon the door I have locked."
Xcor threw his head back and laughed as he ended the call.
"You know," he said to his fighters, "I rather like him. — J.R. Ward

Afore me! It is so very late,
That we may call it early by and by. — William Shakespeare

I'll 'ave 'er there well afore, ma'am," the cabby said, impressed by the guinea, if by nothing else. He chirruped to his horse, who trotted off without needing a slap of the reins or a touch of the whip. — Mercedes Lackey

To sit a fine Christian gentleman down in close proximity to an unsavoury crowd of prostitutes was bad enough. Even worse was to allow him to be humiliated intellectually by the afore-mentioned rabble. (When you must have know perfectly well that it is not given to mere policemen, as it is to street-walkers, to think coherently on their feet). — William Donaldson

He who called her so called her by her true name, for she is the full moon of full moons, afore God! — Umar Ibn Muhammed Al-Nefzawi

"Ay," said the Captain, reverentially; "it's a almighty element. There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so pitch dark," said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, "as you can't see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world without end." — Charles Dickens

But ne'er mind. We're but where we was; and I'll break stones on th' road afore I let these little uns clem. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Whoso List to Hunt
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, helas! I may no more.
The vain travail hath worried me so sore,
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means, my worried mind
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain;
And graven in diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about,
"Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild to hold, though I seem tame."
Sir Thomas Wyatt — Thomas Wyatt

All thy vexations Were but my trials of thy love, and thou Hast strangely stood the test; here, afore heaven, I ratify this my rich gift. — William Shakespeare

Roger, listening intently, couldn't keep from asking a question at this point.
Is it true Colonel Stark said 'Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes?'
Lee coughed discreetly.
Well sir. I couldn't say for sure as no one said that, but I didn't hear it myself. Mind, I DID hear one colonel call out, 'Any whoreson fool wastes his powder afore the bastards are close enough to kill is gonna get his musket shoved up his arse butt-first! — Diana Gabaldon

No stonger allies no greater friends no bigger fighters of honor could a king behould then these assembled afore me mine brothers mine blood — J.R. Ward

I can't see no great difference atween givin' up territory afore a war, out of a dread of war, and givin' it up after a war, because we can't help it-unless it be that the last is the most manful and honourable. — James F. Cooper

Happiness don't ask to see who you be afore her sits down at your table. 'Er comes and sits with them as know how to welcome her and keep her the willing guest. — Jean Plaidy

The slight pull was all it took to completely unbalance his precarious load and dump the manure - all atop her boots.
"Bloody hell! Look what ye done!" the boy cried ... If ye hadn't come along and pulled me o'er it ne'er would have happened.But now ye'd best clean it up afore Devington or Jeffries comes along."
"Me?" she replied incredulously. "I'm not the clumsy oaf who dumped it. It's not my mess to clean."
"Well, I ain't about to be the last to finish my chores. Devington will have me turning over the reeking dung pit instead of breaking me fast wi' the other chaps."
"That's nothing compared to my boots, you ham-fisted lout!"
"Tweren't me what pulled the wheelbarrow arse over tea kettle, ye wantwit! Go bugger yer mother and lick yer boots clean!"
"I'll box your ears, you brazen-faced little jackanapes! ... — Emery Lee

Put your arms around my waist,
Hold me close for a kiss and savour the taste,
I love you now I love you true,
Can I drown please in your eyes so blue?
Let's hang our hearts on a crescent moon,
And skinny-dip in starlit lakes to loves sweet tune,
Let's dance on boithrins grassy line,
And waltz 'Neath the canopied leaves of nature fine.
Lets sit afore fires on a winters night
Let me read you poetry aloud by candlelight,
Let's lay under the skylight and tell constellations apart,
And I'll remind you of the place you have in my heart. — Michelle Geaney

And now you're off to Port Caynn. Watch them sailor lads. They'll have your skirts up and a babe in your belly afore you know what you're about."
"Everyone keep warning me about sailors," I complained. "Why can't someone tell the sailors to stay clear of me?"
Granny snorted. "Oh, you're the fierce one now! Just take care no one else catches you unawares and knocks you on the nob! — Tamora Pierce

I figure you really wanted me you'd say. Like now, maybe, if you dig. I'll fuckin carry you down your place on a run, you tell me aye, get you on your back afore the next word comes out your mouth. But you oughta have yourself certain, causen I ain't lookin for charity, an I ain't lettin you go after. Once ... once ain't enough for me, dig? — Stacia Kane

It can't be supposed," said Joe. "Tho' I'm oncommon fond of reading, too."
Are you, Joe?"
Oncommon. Give me," said Joe, "a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!" he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, "when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, 'Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,' how interesting reading is! — Charles Dickens

I've a great fancy to see my own funeral afore I die. — Maria Edgeworth