After A Long Week Quotes & Sayings

Demons never die quietly, and a week ago the storm was a proper demon, sweeping through the Caribbean after her long ocean crossing from Africa, a category five when she finally came ashore at San Juan before moving on to Santo Domingo and then Cuba and Florida. But now she's grown very old, as her kind measures age, and these are her death throes. So she holds tightly to this night, hanging on with the desperate fury of any dying thing, any dying thing that might once have thought itself invincible. — Caitlin R. Kiernan

Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She's beautiful; when you're with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence; your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she's been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you. — David Benioff

But about the drip drip of long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. They don't know what it is to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the laundrette. Or to sit in a darkened flat on Halloween night, because you can't bear to expose your bleak evening to a crowd of jeering trick-or-treaters. Or to have the librarian smile pityingly and say, 'Goodness, you're a quick reader!' when you bring back seven books, read from cover to cover, a week after taking them out. They don't know what it is to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand on your shoulder sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. — Zoe Heller

A few years ago, long after it had been closed, Eli said he saw a girl swimming in it, coming out of the water in a bikini, laughing at her frigthtened boyfriend, seaweed snaking around her. He said she looked like a mermaid.
Deenie always pictured it like in one of those books of mythology she used to love, a girl rising from the foam gritted with pearls, mussels, the glitter of the sea.
"It looks beautiful", her mother had said once when they were driving by at night, its waters opaline. "It is beautiful. But it makes people sick."
To Deenie, it was one of many interesting things that adults said would kill you: Easter lilles, jellyfish, copperhead snakes with their diamond heads, tails bright as sulfur. Don't touch, don't taste, don't get too close.
And then, last week. — Megan Abbott

If you have a life which is adrenaline-charged all week long because you're a powerful CEO, or you have responsibilities and you're committed to the people you look after, it's very difficult on weekends to sit around the garden. So you probably look for something which gives you the same sort of adrenaline buzz. — Ernesto Bertarelli

One week? One week was your limit? You said as long as it takes, so where are you?" She swallowed around the tightness in her throat. "You said I was your pain in the ass. Well, get your ass over here so I can be a pain in it. Maybe you gave up after one week, but I haven't. I miss you, okay? I miss you, and you're supposed to be outside."

"Ruby," he broke in. "Look out your window." She spun around in time to see him pull up at the curb and get out of his car, still holding the phone to his ear. "I just hit a little traffic. — Tessa Bailey

We played in the Senior Bowl, ... I got MVP out of jamming his (expletive). It basically started there, with a long week of getting after each other. — Fred Smoot

I think no more than a week after I started writing I ran into the first block. It's hard to describe it in a way that will be understandable to anyone who is not a neurotic. I will try. All my life I have been haunted by the obsession that to desire a thing or to love a thing intensely is to place yourself in a vulnerable position, to be a possible, if not a probable, loser of what you most want. Let's leave it like that. That block has always been there and always will be, and my chance of getting, or achieving, anything that I long for will always be gravely reduced by the interminable existence of that block. — Tennessee Williams

I think I'm going to skip all of my classes today because I need a "me" day. The problem with "me" days is that I need them four times a week. The problem with me is that I'm very smart and very capable (or so I've been told) but my laziness hinders me. Laziness. They forgot to add procrastination, self-destruction, and the inability to leave my bed to the list. The problem with me is that I've dealt with this before but have no idea what to do next. I should email my past teachers and ask them what I did after I sent them messages excusing my week-long absences from class due to "personal reasons." I should stop scratching my hand in case my mom asks me if I'm okay again. I am okay. I am doing fine. But I have an itch that I cannot place, an itch that changes locations when my fingers find it. The problem with me is that I will focus on it completely until it goes away. The problem with this feeling is that it never goes away. It has always been one large itch that I cannot place. — Lora Mathis

One study proved just how powerful exercise can be: Three groups of depressed patients were assigned to different coping strategies - one group took antidepressant medication, one group exercised for 45 minutes three times a week, and one group did a combination of both.33 After four months, all three groups experienced similar improvements in happiness. The very fact that exercise proved just as helpful as anti-depressants is remarkable, but the story doesn't end here. The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent! In short, physical activity is not just an incredibly powerful mood lifter, but a long-lasting one. — Shawn Achor

How much does a man live, after all?/ Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
For a week, or for several centuries?/ How long does a man spend dying?/ What does it mean to say 'for ever'? — Pablo Neruda

Do not fancy, as too many do, that thou canst praise God by singing hymns to Him in church once a week, and disobeying Him all the week long. He asks of thee works as well as words; and more, he asks of thee works first and words after. — Charles Kingsley

The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off. That means beignets and crayfish bisque and jambalaya, it means shrimp remoulade, pecan pie, and red beans with rice, it means elegant pompano au papillote, funky file z'herbes, and raw oysters by the dozen, it means grillades for breakfast, a po' boy with chowchow at bedtime, and tubs of gumbo in between. It is not unusual for a visitor to the city to gain fifteen pounds in a week
yet the alternative is a whole lot worse. If you don't eat day and night, if you don't constantly funnel the indigenous flavors into your bloodstream, then the mystery beast will go right on humping you, and you will feel its sordid presence rubbing against you long after you have left town. In fact, like any sex offender, it can leave permanent psychological scars. — Tom Robbins

Emma showered carefully - the downside of having your hair long when you were a Shadowhunter was never knowing after a fight if there was ichor in it. Once the back of her neck had been green for a week. — Cassandra Clare

We are fortunate men then," Frank smiled. "Most people, even the ones who are lucky enough to like what they do, find themselves feeling hopelessly trapped in horror. Horror at the fact they are going to have to do the same things, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. They long for vacations and better money to get them out of the useless wheel. The wheel that so many will grind away at until their deaths. Do you think that men like you and I can just lose ourselves with a certain sense of delusion into pretending that we like what we do? — Jaime Allison Parker

But even after the first week, when Hart got out of the presidential race because of the Washington Post's threat to reveal a long-term relationship Hart had apparently been having with a prominent Washington woman, the media continued to embellish my past. — Donna Rice

people who regularly practice appreciation or gratitude - who, for example, "count their blessings" once a week over the course of one to twelve consecutive weeks or pen appreciation letters to people who've been kind and meaningful - become reliably happier and healthier, and remain happier for as long as six months after the experiment is over. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Lord Macon deposited his wife into a chair and then knelt next to her, clutching one of her hands. "Tell me truthfully - how are you feeling?"
Alexia took a breath. "Truthfully? I sometimes wonder if I, like Madame Lefoux, should affect masculine dress."
"Gracious me, why?"
"You mean aside from the issue of greater mobility?"
"My love, I don't think that's currently the result of your clothing."
"Indeed, I mean after the baby."
"I still don't see why should want to."
"Oh no? I dare you to spend a week in a corset, long skirts and a bustle."
"How do you know I haven't? — Gail Carriger

Now I know grief is a whetstone that sharpens all your love, all your happiest memories, into blades that tear you apart from within. Something has been torn out from inside me that will never be filled up, not ever, no matter how long I live. They say "time heals," but even now, less than a week after my father's death, I know that's a lie. What people really mean is that eventually you'll get used to the pain. You'll forget who you were without it; you'll forget what you looked like without your scars. — Claudia Gray

Sorabji's hair was long and matted, as was his beard. He'd spent six months in a tropical sun, and was now dark brown. His clothes had been disgusting after the first week; following local custom he had taken to wearing his shirt as a loincloth. Sorabji always liked to say that the unfortunate consul had travelled hundreds of miles into the interior to rescue a British citizen, only to find Gunga Din. It was true that the loincloth had come from Gieves & Hawkes, but this was not something you'd notice on a casual inspection. — Helen DeWitt

It would be nice, after this was over, to take a long raft trip. Maybe Jen and I could paddle through Westwater and its ass-clenching rapids, then lounge on the banks in Moab for a week or two. That would be heaven: a raft trip with a beer in my hand instead of a rifle. I — Erik Storey

Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week
a miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards. — Leif Enger

It took one long, desperate week to prove just how wrong was my prophecy.
"The revolution is not over," Branaric said seriously some ten days later.
But even this--after a long, horrible day of real fighting, a desperate run back into the familiar hills of Tlanth, and the advent of rain beating on the tent over our heads--failed to keep Branaric serious for long. His mouth curved wryly as he added, "And today's action was not a rout, it was a retreat."
"So we will say outside this tent." Khesot paused to tap his pipeweed more deeply into the worn bowl of his pipe, then he looked up, his white eyebrows quirked. "But it was a rout."
I said indignantly, "Our people fought well!"
Khesot gave a stately, measured nod in my direction, without moving from his cushion. "Valiantly, Lady Meliara, valiantly. But courage is not enough when we are so grossly outnumbered. More so now that they have an equally able commander. — Sherwood Smith

The length of the friendship never brought astonishment. After all, the
majority of Baby Boomers could likely claim a long-standing friendship in their lives. No, it was always the letters: the-pen-on-paper, inside a-stamped-envelope, mailed-in-a-mailbox letter that was awe inspiring.
"You've been writing a letter every week for almost thirty years?"
The question always evokes disbelief, particularly since the dawn of the
Internet and email. We quickly correct the misconception.
"Well, at least one letter, but usually more. We write each other three or four letters a week. And we never wait for a return letter before beginning another."
Conservatively speaking, at just three letters a week since 1987, that
would equal 4,368 letters each, but we'd both agree that estimate is much
too low. We have, on occasion, written each other two letters in a single
day. — Mary Potter Kenyon

I went over to see Marina two or three or four times a week. I knew as long as I could see the girl I would be all right ... . Soon after, I got a letter from Fay. She and the child were living in a hippie commune in New Mexico. It was a nice place, she said. Marina would be able to breathe there. She enclosed a little drawing the girl had made for me. — Charles Bukowski

On a certain scale, it does look like I do a lot. But that's my day, all day long, sitting there wondering when I'm going to be able to get started. And the routine of doing this six days a week puts a little drop in a bucket each day, and that's the key. Because if you put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket's going to have some water in it. — John McPhee

They'll uncouple easily enough," Omar said dryly.
"You're wrong" Rafe met the man's one-eyed gaze head on.
My heart slowed. What was he doing?
Omar snorted. "You'll forget her in a week."
"Not a chance. I've loved her since I was ten, long before we even met"...
"So if you try to take her from me," Rafe went on lightly, though his eyes had a dangerous gleam, "I will stick a steel knife in your happily ever after and gouge out its guts — Kat Falls

Sex does not enrich or deepen a relationship, it permanently cheapens and destabilises one. Everyone I know who is unfortunate enough to have a sex-mate, joy-partner, bed-friend, love-chum, call them what you will finds that
after a week or two of long blissful afternoons of making the beast with two backs, or the beast with one back and a funny shaped middle or the beast with legs splayed in the air and arms gripping the sides of the mattress
the day dawns when Partner A is keen for more swinking, grinding, and sweating and Partner B would rather turn over and catch up with Jeeves and Bertie. — Stephen Fry

The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming. But again and again we avoid the long thoughts ... .We cling to the present out of wariness of the past. And why not, after all? We get confused. We need such escape as we can find. But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need - not all the time, surely, but from time to time - to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember - the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived. — Frederick Buechner

How long does a man live, after all?
Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
A week, or several centuries?
How long does a man spend dying?
What does it mean to say 'for ever'?
Lost in these preoccupation
I set myself to clear things up.
...
In my own country the undertakers
answered me, between drinks:
'Get yourself a good woman
and give up this nonsense.'
"And How Long" - Pablo Neruda — Pablo Neruda

She dumped me for the quarterback after she'd played my body like a banjo. So Sad."
"I bet"
"I'm serious. I was heartbroken."
"For how long?"
"A whole week." An eternity in the life of a teenage boy. — Nalini Singh

Okay, let's see. Jake Tucker, ex-Marine, PTSD survivor, single - surprising right? I'm a sucker for hot blondes who puke all over me after I pull them from burning vehicles. I also like long walks on the beach where I tackle unsuspecting women to the ground to save them from rogue fireworks, and I singlehandedly took out a cut-throat razor last week with my stealth moves. — Carmen Jenner

The week passed by swiftly, like a dream ... a dream where minutes flew as rapidly as heartbeats. Such a breathless week when something within her drove Scarlett with mingled pain and pleasure to pack and cram every minute with incidents to remember after he was gone, happenings which she could examine at leisure in the long months ahead, extracting every morsel of comfort from them - dance, sing, laugh, fetch and carry for Ashley, anticipate his wants, smile when he smiles, be silent when he talks, follow him with your eyes so that each line of his erect body, each lift of his eyebrows, each quirk of his mouth, will be indelibly printed on your mind - for a week goes by so fast and the war goes on forever. — Margaret Mitchell

1) Choose a person, older than yourself, you see frequently - not too often by approx once a week or once a month. Maybe one of your grandparents if they are still alive.
2) Every time you meet the chosen person you press your 2 pointing-fingers firmly against your eyes for 10 to 20 seconds until various colors and patterns arise.
3) Try to note or memorize the patterns and colors in connection with the context and repeat the practice every time you meet the chosen person for a as long as possible, minimum 6 months.
4) After minimum 6 months of this practice you can recall the person, virtually by pressing your eyes for a while. In the midst of the colors and pattern a sense of presence of the chosen person arrives even after the chosen person has died. — Hans Ulrich Obrist

So depending on the day, my schedule is different. But, generally speaking, I get up in the morning, I do a 30 to 45 minute prescheduling of tweets and just seeing if there's anything urgent - do-or-die emails or server outages, stuff like that. Then after that I go to the gym, where I do all my long-form reading - so Instapaper, and all the Kindle books. I go through an embarrassing amount of books per week. — Maria Popova

Our job is like a baker's work - his rolls are tasty as long as they're fresh; after two days they're stale; after a week, they're covered with mould and fit only to be thrown out. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

The short version is that I started an internet diary a long, long time ago (six years!) because I was bored with my job. I figured I would write a few funny things a few times a week until I had enough material to do stand-up. After two or three weeks, I emailed it to some friends. They emailed it to other friends, and more people started reading. Eventually, I realized that stand-up was scary and it would be much easier to just keep writing this stuff at work. — Jason Mulgrew

Still, he had been a charismatic, talented scoundrel who almost certainly was on to a new woman after a week in Japan; there was nothing to long for or feel sorry for. — J. Ryan Stradal

In just a week, he'd taught her so much. That good, honorable men like him stayed the same after death. That she'd existed for too long with only hatred and revenge in her heart. Love was a much nobler cause to live for. Love didn't follow its own selfish agenda; it was willing to make sacrifices for others. How strange that it took an undead man to show her how to live. — Kerrelyn Sparks