All Tied Up Quotes & Sayings

All of us must do our best to live gracefully in the present moment. I now see depression as akin to being tied to a chair with restraints on my wrists. It took me a long time to realize that I only magnify my distress by struggling for freedom. My pain diminished when I gave up trying to escape completely from it. However, don't interpret my current approach to depression as utterly fatalistic. I do whatever I can to dull depression's pain, while premising my life on its continuing presence. The theologian and philosopher Thomas Moore puts it well with his distinction between cure and care. While cure implies the eradication of trouble, care "appreciates the mystery of human suffering and does not offer the illusion of a problem-free life. — David A. Karp

I don't own any stocks or bonds. All my money is tied up in debt. — George Carlin

Sometimes gaining and losing are more intimately related than we like to think. And some things cannot be moved or owned. Some light does not make it all the way through the atmosphere, but scatters ... The blue of distance comes with time, with the discovery of melancholy, of loss, the texture of longing, of the complexity of the terrain we traverse, and with the years of travel. If sorrow and beauty are all tied up together, then perhaps maturity brings with it not ... abstraction, but an aesthetic sense that partially redeems the losses time brings and finds beauty in the faraway ... Some things we have only as long as they remain lost, some things are not lost only so long as they are distant. — Rebecca Solnit

They all seemed hungry, happy, and healthy enough in their buzzing - oh the days were hot, and the noise of bees filled the air that was dusty with pollen and sun haze, and there were tiny black flies stuck to one another crowded by the creek and a creek stink rising from the deep pool under the willow tree where a wheat sack of new kittens had been drowned, and their tiny terrible struggling had shot like an electric current through the confusion of muddy water and up the arm of the person who had tied the stone around the mouth of the sack and thrust it into the water; and the culprit had not been able to brush away the current; it penetrated her body and made her heart beat with fear and pity. I was the culprit. — Janet Frame

It's funny how the good things are all tied up with the bad. Sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. But either way, you end up taking your sugar with your salt and your kicks with your kisses. — Kami Garcia

You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again, "Solitude, solitude." And You have turned around and thrown the world in my lap. You have told me, "Leave all things and follow me," and then You have tied half of New York to my foot like a ball and chain. You have got me kneeling behind that pillar with my mind making a noise like a bank. Is that contemplation? — Thomas Merton

Memories and emotions are all tied up. The morestrongly you feel about a situation influences how youremember it. — Myra McEntire

Here is a warning: Not all things end up tied with a perfect bow. Sometimes the ribbon frays. Sometimes you get a knot. A very messy one. — Anonymous

She could smell her mother's skin, her lotion, her perfume
her essence. She missed her so much. She clawed at her pillow, wanting to cry, but tears never came, just a swirling riptide of feeling
anger, abandonment, the fear of being alone, and the weight of the emotional millstone still tied around her neck, submerging her further into the murky depths of stinging, biting solitude. She wished she could wail all night. Instead she curled up in the darkness of her bedroom, listening to her racing heartbeat, which eventually slowed, like the ticking of a clock unwound. — Jamie Ford

You only have a few years to play this game and you can't play it if you're all tied up in knots. — Willie Stargell

I wanted, as all men do, to belong.
To what? To an America alive, an America that was no longer a despised cultural foster child of Europe, with unpleasant questions always being asked about its parentage, to an America that had begun to be conscious of itself as a living home-making folk, to an America that had at last given up the notion that anything worth while could ever be got by being in a hurry, by being dollar rich, by being merely big and able to lick some smaller nation with one hand tied behind its broad national back. — Sherwood Anderson

Seeing the world anew, as if it were new, is as old as writing. It's what all painters are trying to do, to see what's there, to see it in a way that renews it. It becomes more and more urgent as the planet gets worn flat and forest after forest is slain to print the paper for people's impressions to be scrawled down on. It becomes harder and harder to be original, to see things with an innocent eye. Innocence is much tied up with it. As the planet gets progressively less innocent, you need a more innocent eye to see it. — Martin Amis

Good-girl-gone-queer Lindsay Lohan, divorced single mother Britney Spears, Caitlyn Jenner with her sultry poses, Kim Kardashian having the gall to show up on the cover of Vogue with her black husband: All of them are tied to the tracks and gleefully run over, less for what they've done than for the threat they pose to the idea that female sexuality fits within a familiar and safe pattern. If control over women's bodies were the sole point of the trainwreck, that would be terrifying enough. But it's only the beginning: Shame and fear are used to police pretty much every aspect of being female. After you've told someone what to do with her body, you need to tell her what to do with her mind. — Sady Doyle

I enjoy acting now more than I ever have. I've had lots of difficult times when I was younger, but that was all tied up with thwarted ambition. It's hard being a young actor, because you don't realise until later that it's only ever about doing the work. — Brian Cox

Trace asked Jackson, "Why the hell are you even here?"
Jackson looked far too uneasy for Trace's peace of mind. "I know you didn't want me here. I got the message loud and clear when you cut the call. Thing is, your little lady was damned insistent that I do something."
"Like get stunned and tied up?"
"You try planning with a hellcat breathing fire in your ear, making demands, prodding you-"
"Priss?"
"She's a terror. That name doesn't suit her at all. — Lori Foster

And then there she was, a girl of elegant height, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age - gawky and coltish, all long legs and arms, but with the promise of stunning beauty to add graceful curves to the lean lines of her body. She was dressed in a pair of my blue jeans, cut off at the tops of her muscled thighs, and my own T-shirt, tied off over her abdomen. A pentacle amulet, identical to my own, if less battered, lay over her heart, between the curves of her modest breasts. Her skin was pale, almost luminous, her hair a shade of brown-gold, like ripe wheat, her eyes a startling, storm-cloud grey in contrast. Her smile lit up her face, — Jim Butcher

Rory stood up with some difficulty, the chair still tied to him. He leaned over me [Maria] and managed to pull my ropes free. Then he turned to Dr Bloom.
'We're escaping,' he said. 'Goodbye.'
Chair still tied to his back, he ran with me from the room. I take it all back. Rory is just wonderful. — James Goss

By the way, Dallas?"
"What, Peabody?"
"That's a lovely tattoo. New?"
Eve clamped her teeth together, strode toward the door with as much dignity as she could manage. "See?" She jabbed a finger into Roarke's chest as they walked down the corridor. "I told you I'd be humiliated by that stupid rosebud."
"You've been drugged, slapped, tied up naked, and nearly killed, but a rose on your butt humiliates you?"
"All that other stuff's the job. The rosebud's personal."
Laughing, he swung his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. "Christ, Lieutenant, I love you. — J.D. Robb

Life doesn't add up. People don't add up. And in the rawest moments of honest hurting, God doesn't add up. All of which makes us hold our trust ever so close to our chests until it becomes more tied to our fears than to our faith. — Lysa TerKeurst

If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church, some Schelling or Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every hour. I am as bankrupt to whom brilliant opportunities offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to another to keep. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Then one of the most hurtful memories came up. It was one night about a year ago. I was 16 and my mom brought a man home. She was high and passed out in her bed. The man staggered into my room and grabbed me. He tied my mouth shut and he rapped me. Right in the same bed with my mother high and passed out. All I could do was cry and I couldn't even yell loud enough to wake her up. — Anthony London

But her eyes would look cold, though her voice might be gentle, and her
hand when it fondled would be tentative, unwilling. The hand would be
making an effort to fondle, and Stephen would be conscious of that
effort. Then looking up at the calm, lovely face, Stephen would be filled
with a sudden contrition, with a sudden deep sense of her own
shortcomings; she would long to blurt all this out to her mother, yet
would stand there tongue-tied, saying nothing at all. — Radclyffe Hall

Your circumstance is ultimately tied to your choices; you create your own destiny. Individual development is up to you - it is your responsibility. You have all eternity to grow and progress to become all you can be. Whether the journey is swift of protracted is ultimately in your hands. — Mark Ireland

To be honest, it's probably better if I don't talk. Cute guys make me nervous. Like tongued-tied total-brain-malfunction nervous. All my filters shut off and suddenly I'm telling them about the time I peed my pants in the third grade during a field trip to the maple syrup factory, or how I'm scared of puppets and have mild OCD that could possibly drive me to tidy up your room the moment you turn your head. — Elle Kennedy

They all went out by a private door and found themselves in a smaller but gorgous room. The Prince tapped on the table and instantly two menials in red tunics appeared.
Bring three glasses of champaigne commanded the prince and some ices he added majestikally. The goods appeared as if by majic and the prince drew out a cigar case and passed it round.
One grows weary of Court Life he remarked.
Ah yes agreed the earl.
It upsets me said the prince lapping up his strawberry ice all I want is peace and quiut and a little fun and here I am tied down to this life he said taking off his crown being royal has many painfull drawbacks. — Daisy Ashford

You are never going to get it all together, you're never going to get your act together, fully, completely. You're never going to get all the little loose ends tied up. — Pema Chodron

But now, all are tied up to the ordinary standing rule of the written word and must not expect any such extraordinary revelations from God. The way we now have to know the will of God concerning us in difficult cases is to search and study the Scriptures, and where we find no particular rule to guide us in this or that particular case, there we are to apply general rules and govern ourselves according to the analogy and proportion they bear towards each other. — John Flavel

One morning early, I couldn't sleep, so I walked down to the beach. And I saw you. For a minute- I didn't realize it was you. You were wearing this long scarf thing tied around your waist, lots of wild colors, and it blew around your legs. You had on a red bathing suit under it."
"You ... " She literally had to catch her breath. "You remember what I was wearing?"
"Yes I do. And I remember your hair was longer than it is now, halfway down your back. All those mad curls flying. Bare feet. All that golden skin, wild colors, mad curls. My heart just stopped. I thought: That's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. And I wanted that woman, in a way I'd never wanted one before."
He stopped, turned a little as she simply stared at him. "Then I saw it was you. You walked off, down the beach, the surf foaming up over your bare feet, your ankles, your calves. And I wanted you. I thought I'd lost my my mind. — Nora Roberts

Google is so strange. It promises everything, but everything isn't there. You type in the words for what you need, and what you need becomes superfluous in an instant, shadowed instantaneously by the things you really need, and none of them answerable by Google....Sure, there's a certain charm to being able to look up and watch Eartha Kitt singing Old Fashioned Millionaire in 1957 at three in the morning or Hayley Mills singing a song about femininity from an old Disney film. But the charm is a kind of deception about a whole new way of feeling lonely, a semblance of plenitude but really a new level of Dante's inferno, a zombie-filled cemetery of spurious clues, beauty, pathos, pain, the faces of puppies, women and men from all over the world tied up and wanked over in site after site, a great sea of hidden shallows. More and more, the pressing human dilemma: how to walk a clean path between obscenities. — Ali Smith

If you look at national economies today, for example, the American economy, the European economy, the Indians, the Chinese, we're all tied together. If one of them sinks, the rest are going to sink with them and if one floats, the rest are lifted up. I find that very interesting. — Frans De Waal

So much of my sense of who I am is tied to mothering. When they left home, I fell into a huge, empty, black hole. Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space. — Jessica Lange

All of us need an identity which unites us with our neighbours, our countrymen, those people who are subject to the same rules and the same laws as us, those people with whom we might one day have to fight side by side to protect our inheritance, those people with whom we will suffer when attacked, those people whose destinies are in some way tied up with our own. — Roger Scruton

Riley had been in the interrogation room for six hours. For most people, this would have been a terrible hardship. Even a few weeks ago, Riley herself would have seen it as a nightmare. Now she just thought it was a nice place to sit down and take a rest. After all, she wasn't climbing down a rope into a dark cavern or getting pushed over a cliff, tied up in a car. — Janet Evanovich

UG staff is patching up wargs, and all surviving Guardians are tied up," Wraith said, "But they could probably use some medical attention. Especially the one dipshit with the idiotic Mohawk. He lost a lot of blood." "Because you ate him," Sin said wryly. Wraith blinked with exaggerated innocence. "Fighting makes me hungry. — Larissa Ione

Lily liked the fog, and didn't even mind the cold wind. She reckoned that Ocean Beach, the dunes there, and the Sunset were the closest San Francisco was going to come to the foreboding, wind-swept moors of England, where she had aspired to suffer romance and heartache when she was a kid. The foghorn, however, rather than a lonesome lament that conjured images of Heathcliff's dark figure, waiting with clenched jaw on the moor for her to bring light and warmth into his life, sounded like a distressed moose tied up in her neighbor's garage, having his nut sack singed with jumper cables at a precise interval calculated to keep her from falling asleep. Which, in turn, made her think of what complete douche bags people could be when all you wanted to do was borrow a defibrillator. Then she was awake and angry. — Christopher Moore

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We are all echoes of each other. We are all humans and feel both despair and happiness. Our similarities, as a species, are staggering. And our mental fragility is directly tied up with our humanity. We have nothing to be ashamed of in being human, any more than a tree should be ashamed of having branches. Let's accept our own nature. Let's be kind to ourselves and to each other. Let's never add to the pain by blaming ourselves. We are all so weird that, really, none of us are. There are seven billion versions of strange on this freak wonder of a planet. We are all part of that. All freaks. All wonderful. — Matt Haig

How's our blue rose?" the doctor asked.
...
"If you really want to know, I feel sorry for the poor thing," Elinor went on. "All wrapped up that way. I'm starting to think there's no point in being a rose if you're tied up and covered with burlap. — Alice Hoffman

Why am I more cautious as I age instead of the other way around? I wonder if it's all tied in to failure. I tend to forget my gains and remember only the losses. The failures have piled up, wreaking havoc with my confidence until, as an adult, I've become afraid to take chances. — Joan Anderson

Nobody said it had to be a story with an ending all neatly tied up like some ridiculous fairy tale. This story's true, and true stories don't have endings, because things just keep going. — Kate Milford

There were the Newport hills, far up the bay, marked now by a rim of lights. There was the water, a blue shimmer under the sun, a black mirror after dark, somehow alive, a living thing that tied it all together, the houses hugging the rim and the people in them, drawn there to be beside the bay. The water had been there in the beginning, the beautiful bay all alone; and now the houses had crowded about it, hemming it in a row of stucco and brick and white clapboard. Someday the bay would be alone again. When The Thing went off. When all of the houses would be blown away. There would be floating rubble, a border of broken trash for a little while. — Dolores Hitchens

he saw her face and there was light again. There, in ...her face, her eyes, there in the spot where Mukti stood, there was his world. All the memories that gave cohesion to the sights and sounds around him were tied up with her.
Mukti gave his life meaning.
She was his life... — Neha Yazmin

She'd grown up hearing about epic battles between Guardians and demons, of legendary Wardens and their brave fight to keep the nocturnis at bay. To her, it all had the air of fairy tales, history through the lens of the Brothers Grimm. She listened to the tales the same way she listened to Beowulf, and had the same expectation of ever featuring in one of those famous battles as of facing Grendel's mother in a Scandinavian swamp.
Yet here she was, not just fighting the forces of evil but somehow tied to her very own Guardian, acting for all intents and purposes like the Warden she had once dreamed of becoming. — Christine Warren

I really am sorry for shooting you."
"Are you?"
Her touch lingered as it reached the end of the bandage, checking that it was still securely tied. "What does that mean?"
"I suspect you would shoot me all over again if you thought it would help your grandmother."
She blinked up at him, almost surprised to discover how close they were standing. "I would," She said. "But that doesn't mean I wouldn't be sorry about it afterward. — Marissa Meyer

Nowadays people don't know how to handle it if all the ends aren't tied up and they're not told what to think in films. And if they're challenged, they think it's something wrong with the film. — Alan Cumming

What's not so great is that all this technology is destroying our social skills. Not only have we given up on writing letters to each other, we barely even talk to each other. People have become so accustomed to texting that they're actually startled when the phone rings. It's like we suddenly all have Batphones. If it rings, there must be danger.
Now we answer, "What happened? Is someone tied up in the old sawmill?"
"No, it's Becky. I just called to say hi."
"Well you scared me half to death. You can't just pick up the phone and try to talk to me like that. Don't the tips of your fingers work? — Ellen DeGeneres

People ask me all the time, "Where do your ideas come from?" So, to clear up this question ... I keep my ideas inside the mind of a tiny man who is tied up in my closet! — C.K. Webb

Tied up with his dismissal of natural law is Hayek's continuous, and all-pervasive, attack on reason. Reason is his bete noire, and time and time again, from numerous and even contradictory standpoints, he opposes it. — Murray Rothbard

Oh, don'tleave now, little bird," Sarren crooned, licking blood from one long bony finger. "It's just getting interesting. You can't fly away just yet."
"I wasn't leaving," I snarled. "I'm not about to let you spread your superplague or virus or whatever you want to call it. You might have given up on this world, but I'm not ready to die yet. I don't need your brand of salvation." The katana shook as I raised it in front of me, but I gripped the hilt and forced my arms to be steady. "So, come on, you psycopath. Let's do this. I'm not tied to a table anymore."
Sarren's grin widened, making him even more frightening. " I still owe you for this, love," he said, gesturing to his left eye, cloudy and blind. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth. Perhaps, I will pluck out both your eyes, then remove all your teeth, and make a necklace from them. Or maybe a wind chime. I do love wind chimes, don't you, little bird? — Julie Kagawa

Again, take someone who's crippled or deformed; they can't be tied to the plank without a lot of sweat and heaving, and then the crowds (who can't see much anyway) get bored and start hissing and catcalling. Meanwhile a queue builds up, and the people at the end of the queue get awkward and start screaming or passing out. If all the clients were young, male, stoical and fit, he'd have fewer problems, but it's surprising how few of them fall into all those categories. — Hilary Mantel

The wheel of Fortune turns one way and another, taking us to the heights or the depths. That is the great wheel on which we all turn, tied to destinies that move up or down at the whim of God above. — Ned Hayes

Hope is a dream of which we long to have. Don't let anyone ever tell you that you can't hope for something because hope brings joy and joy brings happiness and its all tied up in a big ball of love. — Peace Gypsy

All my life, up until that moment, I'd had a warm, protective blanket wrapped around me, knitted of aunts and uncles, purled of first and second and third cousins, knot-tied with grandmas and grandpas and greats. That blanket had just dropped from my shoulders. I felt cold, lost and alone. — Karen Marie Moning

There, at the top of the table, alone amongst all these women, stooped over his ample plateful, with his napkin tied around his neck like a child, an old man sat eating, drips of gravy drbibbling gravy from him lips. His eyes were bloodshot and he had a little pigtail tied up with a black ribbon. This was the Marquis' father-in-law ... he had led a ... Read more tumultuous life of debauchery and duelling, of wagers made and women abducted, had squandered his fortune and terrified his whole family ... Emma's eyes kept coming back to this old man with the sagging lips, as though to something wonderfully majestic. He had lived at court and slept in the bed of a queen! — Gustave Flaubert

Homework, I Love You
Homework, I love you. I think that you're great.
It's wonderful fun when you keep me up late.
I think you're the best when I'm totally stressed,
preparing and cramming all night for a test.
Homework, I love you. What more can I say?
I love to do hundreds of problems each day.
You boggle my mind and you make me go blind,
but still I'm ecstatic that you were assigned.
Homework, I love you. I tell you, it's true.
There's nothing more fun or exciting to do.
You're never a chore, for it's you I adore.
I wish that our teacher would hand you out more.
Homework, I love you. You thrill me inside.
I'm filled with emotions. I'm fit to be tied.
I cannot complain when you frazzle my brain.
Of course, that's because I'm completely insane. — Kenn Nesbitt

PhotoShop is a program I use all the time with my 2D stuff. And that's an extraordinary program - you really can do anything there, and I've never hit my head on the ceiling. The 3D stuff is incredibly complicated, monstrously complicated, but for the things that I want to do, I've found very simple and interesting ways, I hope, of making images without getting tied up too much in the maps and technicalities. — Dave McKean

We found a water pipe, tied the flag to it and put it up. Then all hell broke loose below. Troops cheered, ships blew whistles, some men openly wept. — Charles Lindbergh

Soeur Seraphina gently removed my lace fontanges. It was named for the King's mistress Angelique de Fontanges, who had lost her hat while hunting one day and had hastily tied up her curls with her garter. The King had admired the effect, and the next day all the court ladies had appeared with their curls tied back with lace — Kate Forsyth

Why do I have to do this?" Gator demanded.
Cuz you're such a pretty boy. Our photographer isn't going to fall for one of us as the tied up model," Nico pointed out.
Dumbest plan you've ever come up with," Gator rumbled. "Offering myself all trussed up like a Christmas turkey to a serial killer who likes to torture people isn't too smart. — Christine Feehan

We have our own history, our own language, our own culture. But our destiny is also tied up with the destinies of other people - history has made us all South Africans. — Mangosuthu Buthelezi

She'd never been more beautiful - at his mercy, covered in his seed, and marked so that any man who saw her would know she was fucking owned. He wanted to tattoo his name across her ass and keep her tied up like this all day, ready and waiting for his cock. — Joanna Wylde

The religious school she went to, growing up, Ms. Wright said how all the girls had to wear a scarf tied to cover their ears at all times. Based on the biblical idea that the Virgin Mary became pregnant when the Holy Spirit whispered in her ear. The idea that ears were vaginas. That, hearing just one wrong idea, you lost your innocence. One detail too many and you'd be ruined. Overdosed on information. — Chuck Palahniuk

I'm me. I can't put on airs. I'm not a phony. I know the way I am hurts me more times than it helps. But somehow it's all tied up with my integrity, and my integrity is the last thing I'm going to let you take from me. — Tony Dorsett

The fear of death haunted me for a year. I cried whenever anyone dropped a glass or broke a picture. But even then that passed, I was left with a sadness that couldn't be rubbed off. It wasn't that something had happened. It was worse: I'd become aware of what had been with me all along without my notice. I dragged this new awareness around like a stone tied to my ankle. Wherever I went, it followed. I used to make up little sad songs in my head. I eulogized the falling leaves. I imagined my death in a hundred different ways, but the funeral was always the same: from somewhere in my imagination, out rolled a red carpet. Because after every secret death I died, my greatness was always discovered. — Nicole Krauss

This was the Big One. This was humiliation, disappointment, and dissolution all wrapped up together, tied with a big red bow of disgrace. The gift that keeps on giving. — Rachel Vincent

As Shane threaded between the cars and crossed the lot, all Crystal could do was stare. At the determination in his sexy, powerful stride. At the way those jeans hung on his lean hips and came down around a pair of losely tied brown boots. At the way the breadth of his shoulders pulled the slate blue button-down tight across his chest. Hands in his pockets, he gave her a crooked smile that made her belly flutter and her cheeks heat.
"Hey darlin'," he said as he stepped up on the sidewalk.
"Hi," she said. — Laura Kaye

I can whitewash your little trip out to OR-Kappa-2722 for you. I can sweep it under the rug if you like. You can go back to leading Rapier Squadron and having your hands tied by Command, by Major Deso, by politicians who don't recognize what's happening right before their eyes. I can make it all go away, Poe." She leaned forward. "Or you can join the Resistance and help us stop the First Order before it's too late." "Where do I sign up?" Poe asked. — Greg Rucka

At that point, I sat down and made an alphabetical list of all the crime related words I could think of. So here I am now, nearly half-way through, probably tied up until the year 2015 or SO. — Sue Grafton

Have you ever asked yourselves what you are going to do when you grow up? In all likelihood you will get married, and before you know where you are, you will be mothers and fathers; and you will then be tied to a job, or to the kitchen, in which you will gradually wither away. Is that all that your life is going to be? — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Hundreds of prayer cloths were tied around rocks and stakes all the way up the mountain, but God had failed here. — Alwyn Hamilton

Tied to consciousness are all positive qualities, so that ocean within is an ocean of unbounded intelligence, unbounded creativity, unbounded happiness, unbounded love, unbounded energy, and unbounded peace. And when students start expanding consciousness in those positive qualities, their relationships improve, their grades go up, their happiness goes up, the fighting and bullying stops, and things get very, very, very good. — David Lynch

I quit my last real job, as a writer at a magazine, when I was twenty-one. That was the moment when I lost my place of prestige on the fast track, and slowly, millimeter by millimeter, I started to get found, to discover who I had been born to be, instead of the impossibly small package, all tied up tightly in myself, that I had agreed to be. That — Anne Lamott

We are going to lose the war on terror because all of our agents are tied up investigating the GOP. — John Cole

Now you're just being selfish," Dominic said to Jaime, shaking his head. "You have that body for the rest of your life. I only want it for one night."
Not in the mood to hear his packmate making moves - no matter how playful - on the female he intended to claim, Dante growled. "Dominic, no. Not to Jaime."
"But - "
"No."
Dominic sighed in resignation. "Okay, fine."
Noticing that Trey seemed to find the whole thing extremely amusing, Dante raised a brow at him. "It's funny now that he's not saying this shit to Taryn?"
Trey smiled. "Of course."
"I've always got some stored up for my gorgeous Alpha female," said Dominic with an impish grin.
Instantly Trey's smile fell from his face. "Dom, don't do it."
Dominic held his hands up, pleading innocence. "I was just going to ask her if she went to Boy Scouts ... because she has my heart all tied in knots."
Taryn groaned and chuckled at the same time. — Suzanne Wright

It's all tied up with what's inside you. Head and heart, mind and
soul. Who you are and what you want-that's what fuels it. That's what
shapes it. — Lesley Livingston

Ashram Cat
When the guru sat down to worship each evening, the ashram cat would get in the way and distract the worshipers. So he ordered the cat be tied up during evening worship. Long after the guru died, the cat continued to be tied up during evening worship. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the ashram so that it could be dutifully tied up during evening worship. Centuries later, learned treatises were written by the guru's disciples on the essential role of a cat in all properly conducted worship.
That's often the way we operate in the church. We don't ask the right questions, and we overlay our past experiences-or reactions
against them-on what we think we should do for the future. — Mark Pierson

I always got the feeling with John Paul that if he could have narrowed down the people he met and blessed those he loved the most, they would not be cardinals, princes, or congressman, but nuns from obscure convents and Down syndrome children, especially the latter. Because they have suffered, and because in some serious and amazing way the love of God seems more immediately available to them. Everyone else gets themselves tied up in ambition and ideas and bustle, all the great distractions, but the modest and unwell are so often unusually open to this message: God loves us, his love is all around us, he made us to love him and be happy — Peggy Noonan

He [Benny Carter] is all that every jazz musician the world over wants to be. He's performed 20,000 nights. How many shoes have been shined? How much mascara put on? Rouge? How many of those impossible bowties have been tied? How many love songs have been sung? How many dances have been danced? How many have passed to the sound of his music? It's been said that a man should not be forced to live up to his art. Benny Carter is one of the rare instances when we wonder whether the great art that a man has created can live up to him. — Wynton Marsalis

Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss? — Susan Gordon Lydon

I just figured out what you are," he said.
"What?"
"You're a present." He nodded as if in satisfaction. "Tightly wrapped, with lots of tape, lots of beautiful shiny ribbon, all tied up in impossible knots. The kind of present that makes you half mad when you're trying to get it open. Because you know, the whole time, what's inside is going to be wonderful. — Sierra Donovan

And it was understood that Scottish Borderers did not take kindly to outside Wardens. The oustanding example was the unfortunate Frenchman, Anthony Darcy, the Sieur de la Bastie, who in 1516 was ill-advised enough to accept the Wardenry of all the Scottish Marches, with particular responsibility in the east. This was Hume country, and they regarded Darcy with "horrid resentment". He seems to have been a brave, honest and conscientious Warden, which no doubt rendered him all the more odious. The outcome was that the Humes finally caught up with him near Duns, cut off his head, and took it home in triumph, tied by its long locks to a saddle-bow. — George MacDonald Fraser

I was standing on the deck of the USS Blue, a destroyer. We were all alone out there at this buoy, tied up. — Barney Ross

Killing is a culturally loaded term, for most of us inextricably tied up with some version of a command that begins, "Thou shalt not." Every faith has it. And for all but perhaps the Jainists of India, that command is absolutely conditional. We know it does not refer to mosquitoes. — Barbara Kingsolver

If these things are alchemical," said Sofia, "I'd better be the one to have a look at them."
"If it could be dangerous, I'm going as well," said Lorenzo.
"And me," said Conte
"Great! We can all go! It'll be fun!" Locke waved his tied hands at the door. "But hurry it up, for fucks sake. — Scott Lynch

What was the power that induced strong soldiers to put off their jackets and shirts, and present their hands to be tied up, and tortured for hours, it might be, under the scourge, with an air of ready volition? The moral coercion of despair; the result of an unconscious calculation of chances that satisfies them that it is ultimately better to do all that, bad as it is, than try the alternative. These unconscious calculations are going on every day with each of us, and the results embody themselves in our lives; and no one knows that there has been a process and a balance struck, and that what they see, and very likely blame, is by the fiat of an invisible but quite irresistible power. — J. Sheridan Le Fanu

These rocks are a release for my pent-up emotions. When I feel all tied up inside, I just stand here and throw rocks into that vacant lot!"
"Hello, Charlie Brown, you blockhead!"
"Sometimes I think I'm kind of a vacant lot myself ... — Charles M. Schulz

Will drive you." Her car, he knew, was parked on the other side of the Seine. It seemed far to walk. But he just nodded numbly. "All right," he said. She was in no rush. They strolled arm in arm, like lovers, along the embankment. They passed the houseboat restaurants tied up to the side, brightly lit, still busy with guests. Above them, on the other side of the river, rose Notre Dame, brilliantly lit. For a while, this slow walk, with her head on his shoulder, the soft words she spoke to him, made him feel better. But soon he stumbled, feeling a kind of clumsy weakness coursing through his body. His mouth was very dry. His jaw felt stiff. It was difficult to speak. She did not seem to notice. They had moved past — Michael Crichton

This is all very personal for me, but it's also collective, and the two are not disconnected. I have never believed that you only advocate for the things that you stand for and embody. I've always believed that our liberation, my liberation, is tied up with yours. To make a country that works for me, there's gotta be a country that works for you. — Pramila Jayapal

All Gaza's temples are torn down and burned and the city is cleansed of every belief but the Christian faith. The most stubborn opponents, faute de mieux, are tied up, marched away to the provincial capital, severely tortured, and all killed mala morte, 'a great number.' — Ramsay MacMullen

He's got a heart in his chest.
I see it when I look him in the eyes. I see the agony he feels. He's tortured, twisted, all tied up in knots. He's busy beating himself up inside. But most people don't see that, because they don't look at him. They turn away from the surface, terrified, because what he shows the world can be downright fucking scary. But if they just took a second to really see him, they'd know what I know.
They'd believe what I believe.
And what I believe is this man is far from being a monster. — J.M. Darhower

Every time you open a book for the first time, there is something akin to safe-breaking about it. Yes, that's exactly it: the frantic reader is like a burglar who has spent hours digging a tunnel to enter the strongroom of a bank. He emerges face to face with hundreds of strongboxes, all identical, and opens them one by one. And each time a box is opened, it loses its anonymity and becomes unique: one is filled with paintings, another with a bundle of banknotes, a third with jewels or letters tied in ribbon, engravings, objects of no value at all, silverware, photos, gold sovereigns, dried flowers, files of paper, crystal glasses, or children's toys
and so on. There is something intoxicating about opening a new one, finding its contents and feeling overjoyed that in a trice one is no longer in front of a set of boxes, but in the presence of the riches and wretched banalities that make up human existence. — Jacques Bonnet

Zombies smell worse than anything you can imagine if you haven't been hunting things on the dark side of the world. It's a ripe, gassy odour, like rotting eggs and meat gone bad, crawling blind with maggots. It's road kill and decayed food and body odour all rolled into one package and tied up with puke. — Lilith Saintcrow

I don't suppose you molested me while I was all tied up?" That out-of-the-blue query had her mouth hanging open, and she blinked. "Are you for real?" "Totally. Want to touch me again and see? — Eve Langlais

I figured most of the best actors around 20 years old would all be at drama school, where they're tied up and contractually can't work, so I saw there must be a gap in the market for a young actor like me. — Matt Milne

Adam thought he had me. When I was hurt, all broken up, he took me in and he waited on me, cooked for me. He tried to tie me down that way. Most people get tied down that way. They're grateful, they're in debt, and that's the worst kind of handcuffs. But nobody can hold me. I waited and waited until I was strong, and then I broke out. Nobody can trap me," she said. "I knew what he was doing. I waited."
"I don't hate you," he said. "But I'm glad you're afraid. — John Steinbeck

All stories come to an end. That moment when we sigh and close the book, perhaps sit back in our chair and rest our palm over the cover, is met with quixotic emotions. On the one hand, we're satisfied if the author successfully tied up loose ends, turned a memorable phrase and rewarded the hero's moral choice with his heart's desire. Yet we're also saddened that the adventure is over. Sometimes when we see that we only have a few pages left we slow down, savoring each word, staving off the — Mary Alice Monroe

Contrary to her sister-in-law Janie's claims, Celia hadn't been in love with Kyle Gilchrist since her childhood - she'd simply loved to annoy him ... Armed with childish logic, Celia made it her mission to get under Kyle's skin as often as possible.
She'd drawn hearts emblazoned with her name on every one of his school notebooks.
He'd retaliated by stringing up her My Little Pony collection from a tree.
She'd pushed him into the stock tank.
He'd held her down and tickled her until she peed her pants.
She'd put a snapping turtle in his gym bag.
He'd tied her to the tire swing and spun her until she puked.
All harmless pranks that demanded retaliation. — Lorelei James

Once there was a bunny. This bunny had a birthday party. It was the bestest birthday party ever. Because that was the day the bunny got a bazooka.
THe bunny loved his bazooka. He blew up all sorts of things on the farm. He blew up the stable of Henrietta the Horse. He blew up the pen of Pugsly the Pig. He blew up the coop of Chuck the Chicken.
"I have the bestest bazooka ever," the bunny said. Then the farm friends proceeded to beat him senseless and steal his bazooka. It was the happiest day of his life.
The end.
Epilogue: Pugsly the Pig, now without a pen, was quite annoyed. When none of the others were looking, he stole the bazooka. He tied a bandana on his head and swore vengeance for what had been done to him.
"From this day on," he whispered, raising the bazooka, "I shall be known as Hambo. — Brandon Sanderson

Don't forget to let your reader feel the emotions of the scene. If you get all tied up with the mechanics of where the hero's hands are and not about how they make the heroine feel, then the scene will read flat. — Catherine Bybee

That was the - It was an exciting time because it was as though I was sort of tied up in a paper bag or in a gunny sack with a rope around the neck of it, and all of a sudden with the acceptance of that first book everything sort of spilled out! — Robert McCloskey