After Coffee Quotes & Sayings

What the song expressed so perfectly from lyric to melody was unrequited love, and we men of the south loved nothing more than unrequited love, cracked hearts our primary weakness after cigarettes, coffee, and cognac. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

Derek said Andrew never went to bed before midnight. If we wanted to get him after he was sound asleep, that meant waiting until two.
To my surprise, I fell asleep, so soundly that i didn't hear the alarm on the watch Derek had given me earlier. I woke to Tori shaking me with one hand, while trying to shut off the alarm with the other.
I yawned and blinked hard.
"Running away after you've barley slept in a week isn't a great idea," she said. "Luckily, I anticipated this."
She popped open a can of coke and handed it to me.
"Not as good as coffee," she said. "But I bet you don't drink coffee do you?"
I shook my head as I gulped.
"Kids," she said, rolling her eyes. — Kelley Armstrong

A man doesn't go to drink coffee after climbing, coffee is integral part of the climbing. — Wolfgang Gullich

I could put up with heartbreaks and abortions and busted romances, but I had to have something under my belt to carry on, and I wanted something nourishing, something appetizing. I felt exactly like Jesus Christ would have felt if he had been taken down from the cross and not permitted to die in the flesh. I am sure that the shock of crucifixion would have been so great that he would have suffered a complete amnesia as regards humanity. I am certain that after his wounds had healed he wouldn't have given a damn about the tribulations of mankind but would have fallen with the greatest relish upon a fresh cup of coffee and a slice of toast, assuming he could have had it. — Henry Miller

At the local coffee-shop, hunched in one of the secretive, high-backed booths with hundreds of peoples' names gouged into the wood, we drank cup after cup of black coffee and talked frankly about sex. — Sylvia Plath

Just after midnight, I text my parents who live in Florida: Please tell me you didn't help elect him.

No reply.

The next morning, New York City wakes up with a wet, gray yawn. The air is thick with mist. The city moves at a slower, muffled pace. New Yorkers rarely make eye contact; today isn't much different, except when eyes meet, they lock for a moment in shared grief. Everyone's shoulders bend forward, the world weighing heavier on them than it did yesterday.

The sidewalks and the coffee shops are quiet. Even the subway paces through its underground veins in somber silence. My husband tells me: "The city hasn't been this quiet since 9/11."

- Melissa Lirtsman — Erin Passons

Her eyes scanned the room and spotted her cell phone lying on the coffee table at least three whole feet away from her hands. She groaned. This was when she didn't want to be a witch, she wanted to be a Jedi, so she could use the Force to make her phone fly right into her hand.
What the hell, right? Lifting one arm she reached out an open hand toward the small electronic device. Use the Force, Wynn, she thought and had to stifle a slightly punch-drunk giggle.
From his seat in the oversized chair, Knox eyed her strangely. After a moment, she gave up and dropped her hand to her side, rolling her head along the sofa cusions to meet her mate's gaze. "What were just doing?" he asked warily.
"Using the Force."
He looked from her to the table and back again. "Did you do this successfully?"
She shook her head and grinned. "The Force is weak with this one. I'll never be a Jedi Master. — Christine Warren

A good man buys you tampons when you run out. He does the dishes. He makes you coffee before you're awake in the morning. He listens to you when you're talking, even if it's about home decor. He goes out of his way to touch you, even if it's just your hand. He doesn't call it 'babysitting' when he looks after his own children. He calls you from work just to hear your voice. And he always thinks you're beautiful, even
no, especially
when you don't. — Katherine Center

My grandfather so throughly considered cooking to be "women's work" that he wouldn't even enter the kitchen to get his own glass of water. My husband, born sixty-one years after my grandfather, shows his love by bringing me coffee every morning and whipping up chocolate-chip cookies for friends' birthday parties. I think it's fair to say that few young men these days feel less masculine for knowing their way around a kitchen. — Emily Matchar

She knew it should bother her more, being evil and all, but after she put on a little mascara and some lipstick and poured herself another cup of blood-laced coffee, she found that she was okay with it. — Christopher Moore

After my family leaves in the morning, I'll make my first coffee of the day and then I head upstairs to go to work. At least, that's my plan. I'm not going to check email. I'm not going on Facebook, or sneaking a glimpse at my Instagram feed. No. I'm not going to down that road. But with multiple devices, by the time I get upstairs [to my study] I may well have heard my iPhone ding and - it's Pavlovian. — Dani Shapiro

When is Colton coming over again?"
I straightened magazines on the coffee table and pretended the subject didn't bother me. "When he realizes the truth about either me or Bryant."
Julianne's head popped up from behind the couch, where Ken and a collection of tiny plastic picnic food had fallen. "When will that be?"
"Oh probably around the same time hell freezes over."
"I thought Colton was your friend," Evelynn said. "I thought you liked him."
"I do-well, I used to." It made me feel sad just to say the words.
Rebecca gave me a long look. "But you're not going to talk to him until hell freezes over?"
I straightened another magazine. "Well, anything is possible. After all, Colton is in the same business as the devil, so he probably has some pull down there. Hell might be cooling as we speak. — Janette Rallison

Inevitably Tate phoned her at her office when she'd returned. "Leta said you and Colby left suddenly," he said softly. "What did you find out?"
"This isn't a secure line," she told him without expression in her voice. It hurt to hear him talking to her in that almost intimate tone after what Audrey had told her. "Stop talking like a secret agent," he teased.
"You start thinking like one again," she told him. "I'll meet you for coffee in the usual place."
"What usual place?"
"Where you and Audrey go, of course."
That hadn't been a teasing tone in her voice. "I only took her there once, Cecily, the day you ran into us ... "
"Ten minutes." She hung up, got her jacket and went out, telling her secretary that she had a meeting and would be back in an hour. She dreaded seeing him again. But if she could just keep her head, perhaps she could bluff her way through. She felt betrayed. — Diana Palmer

I wish the whole day were like breakfast, when people are still connected to their dreams, focused inward, and not yet ready to engage with the world around them. I realized this is how I am all day; for me, unlike other people, there doesn't come a moment after a cup of coffee or a shower or whatever when I suddenly feel alive and awake and connected to the world. If it were always breakfast, I would be fine. — Peter Cameron

After lunch we went into the garden for coffee and I turned on the Surgeon-General with his graphics, percentages etc. of sick and wounded to entertain the Premier. — Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig

If you want to stay, I can meet you after the scrimmage. You could come to my house or I could come to yours or we could meet at the library or a coffee shop or..."
Stop talking, asshole.
"Or we could go somewhere with Wi-Fi or somewhere outside or..."
Oh my God, I hate myself right now. — Erin Jade Lange

One theme that runs through many [job hunting books] is just plain harmful: the advice to "just be yourself." Wrong. Remember that first day on your first job, when you went to get your first cup of coffee? You found the coffee machine, and there, stuck on the wall behind it, was a handwritten sign reading:
YOUR MOTHER DOESN'T WORK HERE
PICK UP AFTER YOURSELF
You thought, "Pick up after myself? Gee, I guess I've got to develop a new way of doing things." And so you started to observe and emulate the more successful professionals around you. You weren't born this way. You developed new skills and ways of conducting yourself, in effect creating a professional persona that enabled you to survive in the professional world. — Martin Yate

He'd once heard a story about a monastery on the top of some mountain in Japan or somewhere. After a long trek in the cold to get there, the monks would offer to sell you a cup of coffee. You had a choice: There was a two-dollar cup - or a two-hundred- dollar cup. When pressed to explain the difference, the monks were reported to say, 'A hundred and ninety-eight dollars.' — Steve Perry

Take off your shoes," Jake said after the kids disappeared up the stairs. Meridith eyed her leather loafers. For some reason, she was reluctant to part with them. Not to mention she needed every inch of height. "You're still wearing yours." "I'm not planning on trampling your feet." She removed her shoes and set them by the wall, taking her time. "You want something to drink? I made coffee. Or there's always tea or soda if you prefer." He tucked the corner of his lip. "No, thanks. You want to come closer? I can't teach you from over there." She inched closer. "I'm really bad." "So you said." He gestured to the blue box. "We'll start with a basic box step. Ballroom dancing is counted off like this: one-two-three, one-two-three. Max said he knows how to lead, so I'll teach you to follow." "Good luck with that." "Stand — Denise Hunter

It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it. — Zora Neale Hurston

It's never too late for a coffee. After all it's morning somewhere in the world. — Zooey Deschanel

19The Necrotelicomnicon was written by a Klatchian necromancer known to the world as Achmed the Mad, although he preferred to be called Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches. It is said that the book was written in one day after Achmed drank too much of the strange thick Klatchian coffee which doesn't just sober you up, but takes you through sobriety and out the other side, so that you glimpse the real universe beyond the clouds of warm self-delusion that sapient life usually generates around itself to stop it turning into a nutcake. Little — Terry Pratchett

After college, I went to San Francisco and worked as a secretary in a reinsurance company. That was a pretty dismal job. It was a real small place. Guys would come in, and they'd sort of stick out their arms like wings so I could take their coats off. They'd tell me, 'Two,' and I'd put two lumps of sugar in their coffee. — William T. Vollmann

Q: Where and when do you do your writing?
A: Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules ... afternoons are best, but I'm too lethargic for any real regime. When I'm in the flow of something I can do a regular 9 to 5; when I don't know where I'm going with an idea, I'm lucky if I do two hours of productive work. There is nothing more off-putting to a would-be novelist to hear about how so-and-so wakes up at four in the a.m, walks the dog, drinks three liters of black coffee and then writes 3,000 words a day, or that some other asshole only works half an hour every two weeks, does fifty press-ups and stands on his head before and after the "creative moment." I remember reading that kind of stuff in profiles like this and becoming convinced everything I was doing was wrong. What's the American phrase? If it ain't broke ... — Zadie Smith

I used to be a pre-industrial writer: thousands of words in a spurt and then a few days off. But as I get older, I've switched to a mode best described as 'slow and steady wins the race.' Basically, I write during the same four hours every day, after breakfast and the all-important coffee, generally in the same room and wearing the same pajamas. — Scott Westerfeld

The opera was stylish and the movie a thriller,
But, I had to buy a new dress and the popcorn was stale,
After the show, all I had left was my empty pocket.
For me, I have decided simple pleasures will do,
A walk in the park, a cup of coffee and a good book too,
My friends, you may find these to be a sound investment too. — Nancy B. Brewer

Plus, you know, the buffet really is excellent. And my appetite has greatly recovered after a few cups of coffee. In fact, I've decided to switch from the 5:2 diet to the "get the most from your buffet because it's costing you a fortune" diet. — Sophie Kinsella

In my normal time, I like bacon sarnies, I smoke and I drink coffee. I do look after myself, but sometimes I allow myself to just let go a bit. — Tom Weston-Jones

There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea. — Gary Snyder

Put a scoop of ice cream on it?" she asked. "And coffee. Everyone want coffee?" She looked inquiringly at us, smiling in a way that made me decidedly nervous, especially after that "I can get us a body" remark, and I nodded. Coffee? Why not? — Kim Harrison

During the war one accepted indifferent after-dinner coffee as a necessity, but when, after the war, one sought to find the coffee remembered of days gone by, one found disappointment. I was looking for the rich after-dinner coffee that literally curdled cream if anyone was foolish enough to spoil it with cream. — Constance Spry

You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, 'It happened overnight.' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing. — Colson Whitehead

1. "...All the complicated things in life can be settled over a cup of coffee. A person will tell more of their private life after one good cup of coffee, than after a magnum of Champagne or a quarter of port.." ((page 79)).

2. "..Care for the needy,comfort the distressed, befriend the rejected.." ((Simon's Testimony..page 464..))

3."..The man Jesus said that was wrong and offered the sick the courage to become well, the weak the ability to grow a strong spirit, and nonbelievers the chance to believe.." ((Simon's Testimony..page 461)) — Steve Berry

It was easy to conjure him up this morning, when everything was quiet and still. A little, ginger-bearded man; she had been taller than him by half a head. She had never felt the slightest physical attraction towards him. 'What was love, after all?' thought Parminder, as a gentle breeze ruffled the tall hedge of leyland cypresses that enclosed the Jawandas' big
back lawn. Was it love when somebody filled a space in your life that yawned inside you, once they had gone?
'I did love laughing', thought Parminder. 'I really miss laughing.'
And it was the memory of laughter that, at last, made the tears flow from her eyes. They trickled down her nose and into her coffee, where they made little bullet
holes, swiftly erased. She was crying because she never seemed to laugh any
more ( ... ). — J.K. Rowling

At Rainbow Cake, January's special flavors would be dark chocolate and coffee, those pick-me-ups we all needed to start the day- or a new year. To me, their toasty-toasty flavors said that even if you only had a mere handful of beans and your life went up in flames, you could still create something wonderful.
A little trial by fire could do you good. After all, if it worked so well with raw cacao and coffee beans, it could work for others, including me. — Judith Fertig

I quite clearly remember driving home at 9 a.m., after shooting all day, in a bathrobe, with bodypaint all over my face, and going through McDonald's drive-thru. I ordered a coffee to make sure I didn't crash on the way home. And the girl working there, she didn't even bat an eyelid. I guess it's a regular thing down in Hastings McDonald's. — Gotye

Australians are coffee snobs. An influx of Italian immigrants after World War II ensured that - we probably had the word 'cappuccino' about 20 years before America. Cafe culture is really big for Aussies. We like to work hard, but we take our leisure time seriously. — Hugh Jackman

The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don't listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won't be one of them. Don't listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don't have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers 'someday.' When they are out of high school, when they've finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire ... That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' It all starts with the writing. — Robin Hobb

Epitaph.
Not next year, not the next one,
Not the year after that. But ages
From here,
Clad in love stained sleeping bags,
Dying with feet wrapped in endless
Shirts and pillow cases,
Crumbling with 99 flakes clutched
Between thumb and palm, dripping
Yellow cream from twig fingers,
Basking our white haired chests on
Green grassed parks under purple
Skies. Laughing over coffee after
Bath tubs of coffee have passed
Through our guts. Huddled, lonely,
Under heaped clothes, here lay us ... — Alan C. Martin

Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper, in sight like unto an emerald. And holy, holy, holy is the coffee, which was, and is, and is to come. And hark, I hear the voice of an angel round about the radio saying, "Since my baby left me I found a new place to dwell." And lo, after this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of shoes. And after these things I will hasten unto a taxicab and to a theater, where a ticket will be given unto me, and lo, it will be a matinee, and a film that doeth great wonders. And when it is finished, the heavens will open, and out will cometh a rain fragrant as myrrh, and yea, I have an umbrella. — Sarah Vowell

I was thinking about the first time I ever saw you," he said, "and how after that I couldn't forget you. I wanted to, but I couldn't stop myself. I forced Hodge to let me be the one who came to find you and bring you back to the Institue. And even back then, in that stupid coffee shop, when I saw you sitting on that couch with Simon, even then that felt wrong to me
I should have been the one sitting with you. The one who made you laugh like that. I couldn't get rid of that feeling. That it should have been me. And the more I knew you, the more I felt it
it had never been like that for me before. I'd always wanted a girl and then gotten to know her and not wanted her anymore, but with you the feeling just got stronger and stronger until that night when you showed up at Renwick's and I knew. — Cassandra Clare

Life is just one cup of coffee after another, and don't look for anything else. — Bertrand Russell

Everything seemed bright and different after so long in the darkness. Even though most of the businesses were closed, there was one neon sign lit in the window of a narrow storefront. COFFEE AND PIE, it read. Two bikes were parked just outside.

On the boardwalk, in the thrown light of the neon sign, his head dipped down as I pulled my fingers through his hair. The night still in progress, with daylight hours away. — Sarah Dessen

A great day in New York would be to wake up, get a cup of coffee and head up to Central Park for a nice walk. Then I'd go down to the East Village and stroll around. After that, maybe I'd go check out a museum or catch an indie film at the Angelika. — Emmanuelle Chriqui

She paid for the coffee, took a used newspaper out of the bin, and sat in a comfortable leather armchair. She was shocked to see that people didn't move on after twenty minutes. Apparently, the price of one cup of coffee brought you the rental of an armchair and a free newspaper for as long as you liked, the whole morning if you wished. — William Kuhn

Somehow this new, on-his-best-behavior version was scarier than witnessing him calmly breaking a man with his bare hands.
After what we'd been through, I would've expected him to hole up somewhere dark, eating raw meat, chain-smoking, guzzling some sort of ridiculously tough drink, like whiskey or kerosene or something, and thinking grim thoughts about life and death. But no, here he was, charming and untroubled, sipping coffee. — Ilona Andrews

You taste like the last drop of whiskey
at 3 am
after a lousy day
like the first gulp of coffee on a Monday sipped behind a desk
hot and bitter
like the burning at the back of the throat
after the first cigarette
You taste, boy oh boy, like my next mistake. — Malak El Halabi

The staying awake was a great self-sacrificaing gesture of friendship, and wonderfully in keeping with our current mood of intense friendship and religious fervour. We were all in a state of shock. We engaged in a long Dostojevskyan conversations and drank one black coffee after another. It was sort of night typical of youth, the sort you only can look back on with shame and embarassment once you've grown up. But God knows, I must have grown up already by then, because I don't feel the slightest embarassment when I think back to it, just a terrible nostalgia. — Antal Szerb

Dear Charles, she wrote.
After writing to express my appreciation for all the generosity of our friends, I would be remiss indeed if I did not include a missive to you. Out of all the new blessings in my new life, the one I thank God for the most is you. I thank you for writing to me through Genteel Correspondence, and for choosing me out of all the other women eager for adventure in the wild west.
I thank you for your kindness, and your gentleness toward me. Only very strong men can be gentle. I thank you for sharing your home and your life with me. I thank you for inventing delicious breakfasts. And chicory flavored coffee. And prayers that ease my mind and inspire my spirit and lift my heart. For your smile and the way you hold your hat in your hands. For the things you say and how you say them.
Did you know that I pray for you each day? I do. I pray for your safety and happiness.
Yours in Christ,
Rose — Jan Holly

I believe Evrard already knows where his lockbox is," Hari calmly explained. "That's not what he wants us for or we'd be in his possession right now. The note was clearly an invitation."
Morganith shook her head, and the distant glow of the streetlights seeped through the cracks of the boarded window, touching her mussed wreath of hair. "Really, Hari? Evrard's invitin' us ta tea after we stole from him? Well, hot damn. Maybe he ain't so bad after all." She set her feet on the coffee table — Ash Gray

Dreams and coffee and sunrises make up the rhythms of the road.
Music is a part of it, too: the popular music on the jukeboxes and radio stations. You hear it constantly, in diners and on car radios. The music has a rhythm that fits the steady drumming of tires over pavement. It seeps into your bloodstream. After a while it ceases to make any difference whether or not you like the stuff. When you're traveling alone, a nameless rider with a succession of strangers, it can give you a comforting sense of the familiar to hear the same music over and over.
At any given time, a few current hits will be overplayed to exhaustion by the rock & roll stations. In hitching across the continent, you might hear the same song fifty or sixty times. Certain songs become connected in your mind with certain trips. — Kenn Kaufman

They were learning that New York had another life, too - subterranean, like almost everything that was human in the city - a life of writers meeting in restaurants at lunchtime or in coffee houses after business hours to talk of work just started or magazines unpublished, and even to lay modest plans for the future. Modestly they were beginning to write poems worth the trouble of reading to their friends over coffee cups. Modestly they were rebelling once more. — Malcolm Cowley

After 1957 On The Road sold a trillion levis and a million espresso coffee machines, and also sent countless kids on the road. This was of course due in part to the media, the arch-opportunists. They know a story when they see one, and the Beat movement was a story, and a big one . . . The Beat literary movement came at exactly the right time and said something that millions of people of all nationalities all over the world were waiting to hear. You can't tell anybody anything he doesn't know already. The alienation, the restlessness, the dissatisfaction were already there waiting when Kerouac pointed out the road. — William S. Burroughs

And I don't believe in such a thing as "happily ever after". There's only happily every now and then. I find the hardest trick is to recognize the now-and-thens, and to bask in them when they come. Happiness is a choice we make, like how to wear our hair, or having coffee with breakfast and tea at night. — Cindy Bonner

Those of us that had been up all night were in no mood for coffee and donuts, we wanted strong drink. We were, after all, the cream of the national sporting press. — Hunter S. Thompson

After an hour or so has passed I too am gone and there is only a blanket and a book, coffee cups, and clothing, to show that we were there at all. — Audrey Niffenegger

Quality wine, Scotch, and coffee had been the three irreplaceable commodities after the death of Old Earth. — Dan Simmons

Our mornings were never "rise and shine." They were "rise and fight." They were loud and ravaging. They were heavy and unnerving, like the after-math of a war, with unresolved territorial disputes.
They were never serene, but they were beautiful. More beautiful than the smile you wear when you step out of the shower, more tempting than the sight of you brewing coffee from across the kitchen bar, more promising than a glorious victory, bigger than all our tumultuous past. Bigger than you. Bigger than I. — Malak El Halabi

Every morning, after a few sips of coffee and a bit of small talk, each of us retreats with our books, and travels centuries away from this place. — Yxta Maya Murray

A Centaur has a man-stomach and a horse-stomach. And of course both want breakfast. So first of all he has porridge and pavenders and kidneys and bacon and omlette and cold ham and toast and marmalade and coffee and beer. And after that he tends to the horse part of himself by grazing for an hour or so and finishing up with a hot mash, some oats, and a bag of sugar. That's why it's such a serious thing to ask a Centaur to stay for the weeekend. A very serious thing indeed. — C.S. Lewis

It is, after all, far too easy to pinch and kick the bizarre Mormon Church; to say it's ripe for satire and parody is to say a Catholic schoolgirl is ripe for debauchery. It's like shooting polygamist fish in a barrel of coffee. — Mark Morford

For more than three decades, coffee has captured my imagination because it is a beverage about individuals as well as community. A Rwandan farmer. Eighty roast masters at six Starbucks plants on two continents. Thousands of baristas in 54 countries. Like a symphony, coffee's power rests in the hands of a few individuals who orchestrate its appeal. So much can go wrong during the journey from soil to cup that when everything goes right, it is nothing short of brilliant! After all, coffee doesn't lie. It can't. Every sip is proof of the artistry
technical as well as human
that went into its creation. — Howard Schultz

I believed in Oxford, and cobblestoned squares, and old bricks thick with ivy,a nd rainy days curled up reading books. I believed in my mother's strong coffee and in the lonely, aching scent of early dawn before anyone else in my boardinghouse was awake. I believed in my favorite men's cardigan and the way the wind felt on the back of my neck. I believed in life as it lay before me, spinning out slowly, day after day of warm springs and thunderstorms and laughter. These were the things I believed in. — Simone St. James

Characters simply come and find me. They sit down, I offer them a coffee. They tell me their story and then they almost always leave. When a character, after drinking some coffee and briefly telling her story, wants dinner and then a place to sleep and then breakfast and so on, for me the time has come to write the novel. — Dacia Maraini

The morning meal was served in traditional socialist fashion - very slowly, with the courses out of order so that the jelly arrived half an hour after the toast and the coffee didn't come until we'd called for the check. However, it was hard to be angry at a place that had ice cream, beer, and cigarettes on its breakfast menu. — P. J. O'Rourke

And then he has nothing to do. After three weeks-or is it a lifetime?-of ceaseless activity, he has nothing to do. A very long sentence, anchored in solid nouns, with countless subordinate clauses, scores of adjectives and adverbs, and bold conjunctions that launched the sentence in a new direction-besides unexpected interludes-has finally, with a surprisingly quiet full stop, come to an end. For an hour or so, sitting outside on the landing at the top of the stairs, nursing a coffee, tired, a little relieved, a little worried, he contemplates that full stop. What will the next sentence bring? — Yann Martel

Minutes after Eve stepped into her office to coordinate her next move, Peabody rushed in.
"I've got the initial sweeper's report on the room the Lombards vacated - nothing," Peabody said hurriedly. "Canvassing cops found the bar - one block east, two south of the hotel. Door was unlocked. Zana's purse was inside on the floor. I have a team heading there now."
"You've been busy," Eve said. "How did you manage to fit in sex?"
"Sex? I don't know what you're talking about. I bet you want coffee." She darted to the AutoChef, then whirled back. "How do you know I had sex? Do you have sex radar?"
"Your shirt's not buttoned right, and you've got a fresh hickey on your neck."
"Damn it." Peabody slapped a hand to the side of her neck. "How bad is it? Why don't you have a mirror in here?"
"Because, let's see, could it be because it's an office? — J.D. Robb

He looked tired. And not the kind of tired you feel after a long day, but the kind of tired that lingers no matter how much sleep you get or how much coffee you ingest. The kind of tired that is less about rest and more about unrest. I — T.M. Frazier

After college, rather than pursue real work, I joined a folk group and sang in coffee houses and nightclubs, an occupation that does little for the intellect and even less for the complexion. — Marshall Brickman

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Bright lamplight bounced off golden varnished wood. The suddenly vivid colors of scarves, hats, hair and faces after the gray-green gloom they'd been immersed in all morning dazzled them. The solid warmth of the coal-fired range, dry and hot, pressed against them from the front as the lingering damp embedded in their backs brought forth a final, convulsive shiver. The sights and smells of rich food and aromatic coffee hit them, no longer just a hope in their hollow stomachs. This made them all as if drunk with good fortune and delighted them with sheer, physical pleasure. — Antonio Dias

Good morning, sunshine," he said, his smile quickly disappearing in the face of her murderous glance when she raised her face to look at him.

"Shut up and die, morning person. Coffee," she mumbled.

Right. Note to self. Mate was not a morning person. He poured a cup of coffee and placed it on the table near her hand along with the sweetener and cream. He watched as she poured three packets of Equal into the coffee with her forehead still on the table. He looked on in amazement as she felt around and unscrewed the cap to the cream before dousing the dark liquid. She stirred for a second before dragging the cup to her lips. After a few sips she was able to lift her head. By the time she had finished half a cup she was sitting upright. When she finished the cup, her eyes were open and she was looking around.

"You need to be a coffee commercial," Connor said, staring at his mate. — Alanea Alder

A woman with long, blonde hair stood for a moment on the other side of the door. She looked similar to his date. Was she entering or leaving the coffee house?
Before Paul could confirm her identity or stand and run after her, she strode away and disappeared in the crowd. — Cheryl Sterling

So, Henrik, is the weather good for fishing?" Papa asked cheerfully, and listened briefly. Then he continued, "I'm sending Inge to you today with the children, and she will be bringing you a carton of cigarettes. "Yes, just one," he said, after a moment. Annemarie couldn't hear Uncle Henrik's words. "But there are a lot of cigarettes available in Copenhagen now, if you know where to look," he went on, "and so there will be others coming to you as well, I'm sure." But it wasn't true. Annemarie was quite certain it wasn't true. Cigarettes were the thing that Papa missed, the way Mama missed coffee. He complained often - he had complained only yesterday - that there were no cigarettes in the stores. — Lois Lowry

Emotions are contagious. We've all known it experientially. You know after you have a really fun coffee with a friend, you feel good. When you have a rude clerk in a store, you walk away feeling bad. — Daniel Goleman

The difference between most mothers and me is that I didn't sit around drinking coffee at baby group for 12 months after the birth of my baby. No, in three weeks I was back in my suit, back at my desk earning profit for my business and I don't see why other women shouldn't do the same. — Katie Hopkins

The first Monday's cupcakes had been elderflower, two days later and three tiers in honey and walnut, the day after that and toffee apple, the next cake- coffee and walnut, then banoffee, then chocolate and maple. — Anouska Knight

I don't think any book of mine will ever come as close to pure fantasy as 'A Heaven of Others.' I'll never again set a book in a world or after-world in which it's impossible to buy a cup of coffee or take an undisturbed afternoon nap. — Joshua Cohen

Then he looked up, despite all best prior intentions. In four minutes, it would be another hour; a half hour after that was the ten-minute break. Lane Dean imagined himself running around on the break, waving his arms and shouting gibberish and holding ten cigarettes at once in his mouth, like a panpipe. Year after year, a face the same color as your desk. Lord Jesus. Coffee wasn't allowed because of spills on the files, but on the break he'd have a big cup of coffee in each hand while he pictured himself running around the outside grounds, shouting. He knew what he'd really do on the break was sit facing the wall clock in the lounge and, despite prayers and effort, count the seconds tick off until he had to come back and do this again. And again and again and again. — David Foster Wallace

I had already imagined how it would be next year.
I'd be at Columbia, and Marcus would move to Manhattan, or maybe one of the outer boroughs. I would study hard, and he would make money playing gigs at dingy bars. We'd spend countless hours going to clubs to see bands on the verge, touring obscure art exhibits, and sipping pot after pot of black coffee at hole-in-the-wall cafes. Many more hours would be spent lounging under the covers. We would never run out of witty and fascinating things to say to each other. Eventually, he'd apply to Columbia, and we'd be the sort of well-educated, cosmopolitan couple that confuse the suburbumpkins who never leave Pineville. — Megan McCafferty

I wish I were brave enough to go after him. Maybe ask him to grab a coffee. Or dinner. Or brunch - wait, do people our age even have brunch? — Elle Kennedy

I could lie there as long as I wanted, and let all the pictures of things a man might want run through my head, coffee, a girl, money, a drink, white sand and blue water, and let them all slide off, one after another, like a deck of cards slewing slowly off your hand. Maybe the things you want are like cards. You don't want them for themselves, really, though you think you do. You don't want a card because you want the card, but because in a perfectly arbitrary system of rules and values and in a special combination of which you already hold a part the card has meaning. But suppose you aren't sitting in a game. Then, even if you do know the rules, a card doesn't mean a thing. They all look alike. — Robert Penn Warren

He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs ... This is the smell I love. This and fresh-cut clover, the crushed sage as you ride after cattle, wood-smoke and the burning leaves of autumn. That must be the odor of nostalgia, the smell of the smoke from the piles of raked leaves burning in the streets in the fall in Missoula. Which would you rather smell? Sweet grass the Indians used in their baskets? Smoked leather? The odor of the ground in the spring after rain? The smell of the sea as you walk through the gorse on a headland in Galicia? Or the wind from the land as you come in toward Cuba in the dark? That was the odor of cactus flowers, mimosa and the sea-grape shrubs. Or would you rather smell frying bacon in the morning when you are hungry? Or coffee in the morning? Or a Jonathan apple as you bit into it? Or a cider mill in the grinding, or bread fresh from the oven? — Ernest Hemingway,

Curiously, the balance seems to come when writing is woven into every aspect of my life, like eating or exercising - one flows constantly into the next: I'll wake up and have coffee, read the news, then write a letter or two (always in longhand), then go teach, and after teaching write a bit in a journal - dreams, what I had for breakfast and lunch and why I had it, what's on the iPod, sexual habits, etc. - then read a bit, then work on a real bit of writing ... you get the idea. — Kevin Keck

This is how the soul heals. it thaws out bit by bit, the way the ground warms after a hard winter. you notive the sun or hear the whippoorwill calling across the flats. You sweep your porch, go drink coffee in the shade of the trumpet vines. You have days where you want to lay down and die, but what you learn is this: As long as there's somebody left on this earth who loves you, it's reason enough to stay alive. You don't give in to your broke heart
you just let the wide, cracked space fill up again. — Michael Lee West

Coffee is the highlight of my day. After coffee everything is downhill. — Bill Simmons

I better go," Carter squeezed me once more and stood, grabbing his wallet from the coffee table. "I need to hit up the lottery if I want to get you out of this mess. Will you let me buy a monkey if we win, though?"
"Only if you buy me an island off the coast of Fiji."
"You crazy-ass woman. A monkey is so much cooler than an island."
"How about a monkey IN Fiji?"
"Now there's a woman after my own heart," Carter slapped his hand to his chest, sighing dramatically. "I'll let you know if we win." He started for the door.
"Uh huh."
"You'll know if we do. I'll be the one streaking on Pike Street. — Rachael Wade

We eat pancakes to escape loneliness, yet within moments we want nothing more than our freedom from ever having so much as thought about pancakes. Nothing can prevent us, after eating pancakes, from feeling the most awful regret. After eating pancakes, our great mission in life becomes the repudiation of the pancakes and everything served along with them, the bacon and the syrup and the sausage and coffee and jellies and jams. But these things are beneath mention, compared with the pancakes themselves. It is the pancake
Pancakes! Pancakes!
that we never learn to respect. — Donald Antrim

There are stories of elopements, unrequited love, family feuds and exhausting vendettas, which everyone was drawn into, had to be involved with. But nothing is said of the closeness between two people: how they grew in the shade of each other's presence. No one speaks of that exchange of gift and character - the way a person took on and recognized in himself the smile of a lover ...
Where is the intimate and truthful in all this? Teenager and Uncle. Husband and lover. A lost father in his solace. And why do I want to know of this privacy? After the cups of tea, coffee, public conversations ... I want to sit down with someone and talk with utter directness, want to talk to all the lost history like that deserving lover. — Michael Ondaatje

Compounding Julia's irritation was the fact that Mark and Jennifer were the parents of one of Sam's friends, and thought of Jacob and Julia as their friends, and wanted to have a coffee after to "catch up." Julia liked them and, insofar as she could muster enthusiasm for extrafamilial relations, considered them friends. But she couldn't muster much. At least not until she could catch up with herself. — Jonathan Safran Foer

You're a religious man, ... You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Another will say, 'I built houses.' But I will say, 'I didn't forget you.' — Simon Wiesenthal

My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs because, full disclosure: I'm really a komodo dragon - and that's because then I'm energized but not so awake that the critical voice clicks on, the voice that sometimes says, "Don't write that," or "Man, that sentence is terrible - you should give up and go pet the cats." — Jeff VanderMeer

the details of anything you love are
always what is most thrilling, most poignant,
most important.
i loved her as she rose from bed and fell back
against it again, and all she did in-between.
when you love someone you accept them,
you become them in a way, and all they
do forms into you. their mannerisms turn
into truth- the way she holds her favorite coffee mug,
the way she laughs, the way she smells, the way her lips
curl after certain words. all of the simple things
suddenly become gigantic things and light up the world
before you like a flame thrown into the clouds.
what a breathtaking display. the way
the earth begins to dissolve in your periphery
and a human being replaces it.

no matter what they tell you-
a person is a universe when truly
loved and anything less is not
love at all. — Christopher Poindexter

When the Europeans conquered America, they opened gold and silver mines and established sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations. These mines and plantations became the mainstay of American production and export. The sugar plantations were particularly important. In the Middle Ages, sugar was a rare luxury in Europe. It was imported from the Middle East at prohibitive prices and used sparingly as a secret ingredient in delicacies and snake-oil medicines. After large sugar plantations were established in America, ever-increasing amounts of sugar began to reach Europe. The price of sugar dropped and Europe developed an insatiable sweet tooth. Entrepreneurs met this need by producing huge quantities of sweets: cakes, cookies, chocolate, candy, and sweetened beverages such as cocoa, coffee and tea. The annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from near zero in the early seventeenth century to around eighteen pounds in the early nineteenth century. — Yuval Noah Harari

There was a bag of coffee beans beneath a harpoon gun and a frozen hunk of spinach, but there was no way to grind the beans into tiny pieces to make coffee. Near a picnic basket and a large bag of mushrooms was a jug of orange juice, but it had been close to one of the bullet holes in the trunk, and so had frozen completely solid in the cold. And after Sunny moved aside three chunks of cold cheese, a large can of water chestnuts, and an eggplant as big as herself, she finally found a small jar of boysenberry jam, and a loaf of bread she could use to make toast, although it was so cold it felt more like a log than a breakfast ingredient. — Lemony Snicket

am late for my afternoon coffee with Linda Leaming, an American who has lived in Bhutan for the past nine years. Asia has attracted its share of spiritual seekers, or lama lickers as they're sometimes called, but Bhutan was closed to outsiders until the 1970s. Even after that, it was not an easy country to get to. You had to want it. — Eric Weiner

esophagus. Certain
foods, including chocolate, fried or fatty foods, coffee, soda, onions, and garlic, seem
to be associated with this condition.
19
Lifestyle factors also play a role. For example,
smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, wearing tight-fitting clothes, being overweight
or obese, eating large evening meals, and reclining after eating tend to cause or
worsen the condition. — Joan Salge Blake

What's been coming to Becca, since all this began, is this: real isn't what they try to tell you. Time isn't. Grown-ups hammer down all these markers, bells schedules coffee-breaks, to stake down time so you'll start believing it's something small and mean, something that scrapes flake after flake off of everything you love till there's nothing left; to stake you down so you won't lift off and fly away, somersaulting through whirlpools of months, skimming through eddies of glittering seconds, pouring handfuls of hours over your upturned face. — Tana French

Now he got out of bed and wrapped his blanket around himself, yawning. That evening, he'd talk to Jude. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he would be safe; he would keep them both safe. He went to the kitchen to make himself coffee, and as he did, he whispered the lines back to himself, those lines he thought of whenever he was coming home, coming back to Greene Street after a long time away - "And tell me this: I must be absolutely sure. This place I've reached, is it truly Ithaca?"- as all around him, the apartment filled with light. — Hanya Yanagihara

To Poetry"

Don't desert me
just because I stayed up last night
watching The Lost Weekend.

I know I've spent too much time
praising your naked body to strangers
and gossiping about lovers you betrayed.

I've stalked you in foreign cities
and followed your far-flung movements,
pretending I could describe you.

Forgive me for getting jacked on coffee
and obsessing over your features
year after jittery year.

I'm sorry for handing you a line
and typing you on a screen,
but don't let me suffer in silence.

Does anyone still invoke the Muse,
string a wooden lyre for Apollo,
or try to saddle up Pegasus?

Winged horse, heavenly god or goddess,
indifferent entity, secret code, stored magic,
pleasance and half wonder, hell,

I have loved you my entire life
without even knowing what you are
or how - please help me - to find you. — Edward Hirsch