Alley Quotes & Sayings

Enough already of Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault poured like ketchup over everything. Lacan: the French fog machine; a grey-flannel worry-bone for toothless academic pups; a twerpy, cape-twirling Dracula dragging his flocking stooges to the crypt. Lacan is a Freud T-shirt shrunk down to the teeny-weeny Saussure torso. The entire school of Saussure, inluding Levi-Strauss, write their muffled prose of people with cotton wool wrapped around their heads; they're like walking Q-tips. Derrida: a Gloomy Gus one-trick pony, stuck on a rhetorical trope already available in the varied armory of New Criticism. Derrida's method: masturbating without pleasure. It's a birdbrain game for birdseed stakes. Neo-Foucaldian New Historicism: a high-wax bowling alley where you score points just by knockng down the pins. — Camille Paglia

Sword rang on sword, the metallic sounds echoing throughout the wide market place and filling the crannies of every dark alley. Strength waged against strength, as, indeed, rivals of evil have ever-battled the adversaries of truth. The face of one combatant appeared cool and certain, the other passionate in his resolve, intent upon seeing the battle through and winning the day with valor... — Alicia A. Willis

Then they decided that the fleas that lived on Siamese cats would probably be more intelligent than the fleas that lived on just ordinary alley cats. It only made sense that drinking intelligent blood would make intelligent fleas. — Richard Brautigan

They are four people as similar as they are unique - one at the end of his career, one lost in the middle, one who dreams of beginning, and the fourth, a child, not knowing what is ahead of him. — Richard J. Alley

It was the butt that had done it nineteen years ago, was still doing it now. He'd seen it coming around Strawberry Alley and had followed it four whole blocks. It was mesmerizing, the way it moved, independent of the rest of her body, as though operating under the influencer of another brain entirely, one cheek knocking into the other cheek so that that cheek had to swing out before knocking back — Yaa Gyasi

You'll never be disappointed if you always keep an eye on uncharted territory, where you'll be challenged and growing and having fun. — Kirstie Alley

Don't become a victim of yourself. Forget about the thief waiting in the alley; what about the thief in your mind? — Jim Rohn

There's always somebody older, richer, more desperate than you. — Kirstie Alley

I looked at the door, at war with myself. On the one hand, I hated going anything Reth wanted me to. On the other hand, there was a mop with my name on it inside.
"Fine, but if you try anything-"
"Really, Evelyn,how I've missed your charming company."
Keeping a wary eye on the faerie, I followed hi, through the alley. We made our way down the lamp-lined street, his step so light it bordered on dancing. I felt like a graceless clod next to him. Then there was the aspect of his ethereal, near-angelic beauty compared to my..well, for the sake of my self-esteem, it was probably best not to compete. — Kiersten White

I was a teenager, we were pretty much fully indoctrinated, thanks to sexual scare tactics. I remember so many public-health commercials with a B-actor in a fake alley background warning us to use protection or telling us the only real safe choice was abstinence. We were highly frightened of sex from day one. There was no free-swinging '90s. — Michael Stipe

The social sciences were for all those who had not yet decided what to do with their lives, and for all those whose premature frustrations led them into the sterile alleys of confrontation. — Peter Ustinov

I can feel his presence here in every stone he has touched, every person he has lifted up, every street and alley and city that he has changed in the few years of his life, because he is the Republic, he is our light, and I love you, I love you, until the day we meet again I will hold you in my heart and protect you there, grieving what we never had, cherishing what we did. I wish you were here.
I love you, always. — Marie Lu

I wish I knew how to turn the volume down on the sadness in this girl's eyes. I wish I could take her out of this dark, smelly alley and tuck her away some place safe. — Cal Armistead

And for the first time since I woke in the alley--I don't want to die. I want to live. I want to see Miya again, and Matthew and Ashlee and Sammy and Kai. I want to live long enough to see my mom and dad again, and my sister, Lily. — Dannielle Wicks

Tall, broad-shouldered, every inch of him seemingly corded with muscle, he was a male blooded with power. He paused in a dusty shaft of sunlight, his silver hair gleaming. As if his delicately pointed ears and slightly elongated canines weren't enough to scare the living shit out of everyone in that alley, including the now-whimpering madwoman behind Celaena, a wicked-looking tattoo was etched down the left side of his harsh face, the whorls of black ink stark against his sun-kissed skin. — Sarah J. Maas

I'm a licensed private investigator and have been for quite a while. I'm a lone wolf, unmarried, getting middle-aged, and not rich. I've been in jail more than once and I don't do divorce business. I like liquor and women and chess and a few other things. The cops don't like me too well, but I know a couple I get along with. I'm a native son, born in Santa Rosa, both parents dead, no brothers or sisters, and when I get knocked off in a dark alley sometime, if it happens, as it could to anyone in my business, nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life. — Raymond Chandler

It was like two drunks in a back alley throwing punches at each other. — Eamon

Something in me snaps. Since I woke in the alley I've been pushed down, feared and prosecuted for things out of my control. Well, enough is enough. — Dannielle Wicks

I cut my eyes to the alley. Ranger was still there, doubled over the steering wheel, shaking with laughter. — Janet Evanovich

I've known Prince for many years - I worked on the "Raspberry Beret" video - and Kirstie [Alley] and I used to fight about him.He once sent a card [saying] he had penned a song about me, called "Palomino Pleasure Ride." I remember bringing this card to work one time and showing Kirstie and saying: "See? Now who's the better friend?" It was so ridiculous. — Kirstie Alley

It is perfectly possible to converse with any cat, from prize-winning Siamese to alley tabby. Humans who are slow learners may start with a highly articulate Siamese and progress in time to the more sensitive and difficult business of talking to scared strays. Other people, naturally gifted, can talk to any cat right away. — Patricia Moyes

The low-ceiling price bazaar for sexual relief was a street called Middie Alley. You could barely get a pushcart through this avenue. Top price-twenty-five cents. — W.C. Fields

Until I separated from Parker, I had never been without them-and it's the hardest thing to share them. But we're trying to give the children the semblance of having whole lives. — Kirstie Alley

In 'Rocky' and 'Paradise Alley,' my dad played very expressive characters, and he was out there. — Sage Stallone

In another minute or two, those men would have tossed your skirts in that alley right there... if you were wearing skirts!" You should be thanking me for saving your sorry hide! By my calculations, that's twice in one day. — Melissa Lurquette

Wolf's fur was speckled with drops of blood that had beaded on it like rain. The gravel in the alley shone in the half-light from the distant street lamps. The wolf's muzzle, a little shorter and broader than I had seen on Wild Kingdom, was drawn back, black lips from fangs striped white and red like peppermints. Its eyes were blue, rather than any proper lupine shade, and gleamed with a sort of demented awareness. — Jim Butcher

Texts between Dr. Stayner & Livie(with a little help from Kacey)
Dr. Stayner: Tell me you did one out-of-character thing last night
Livie: I drank enough Jell-O shots to fill a small pool, and then proceeded to break out every terrible dance move known to mankind. I am now the proud owner of a tattoo and if I didn't have a video to prove otherwise, I'd believe I had it done in a back alley with hepatitis-laced needles. Satisfied?
Dr. Stayner: That's a good start. Did you talk to a guy?
Kacey(answering for Livie): Not only did I talk to a guy but I've now seen two penises, including the one attached to the naked man in my room this morning when I woke up. I have pictures. Would you like to see one?
Dr. Stayner: Glad you're making friends. Talk to you on Saturday — K.A. Tucker

The Mercy of Allah is an Ocean, Our sins are a lump of clay clenched between the beak of a pigeon. The pigeon is perched on the branch of a tree at the edge of that ocean.It only has to open it's beak — Leila Aboulela

Mastery is a blind alley. Since, moreover, he cannot renounce mastery and
become a slave again, the eternal destiny of masters is to live unsatisfied or to be killed. The master
serves no other purpose in history than to arouse servile consciousness, the only form of consciousness
that really creates history. The slave, in fact, is not bound to his condition, but wants to change it. Thus,
unlike his master, he can improve himself, and what is called history is nothing but the effects of his long
efforts to obtain real freedom. Already, by work, by his transformation of the natural world into a
technical world, he manages to escape from the nature which was the basis of his slavery in that he did
not know how to raise himself above it by accepting death. — Albert Camus

She pushed the hair away, then began uncoiling and recoiling the silky mass with an unconscious, natural grace. Against the crude background of the alley, she was startlingly feminine and delicate, and with every movement of her arms and hair, her scent wove around Cullen - flowers and freshness and the subtle earthy warmth of woman It sank into him and hardened him with a primitive fierceness he hadn't experienced since his early teens. — Fiona Brand

The alley and the music all fell away, and there was nothing but her and the rain and Jace, his hands on her ... He made a noise of surprise, low in his throat, and dug his fingers into the thin fabric of her tights. Not unexpectedly, they ripped, and his wet fingers were suddenly on the bare skin of her legs. Not to be outdone, Clary slid her hands under the hem of his soaked shirt, and let her fingers explore what was underneath: the tight, hot skin over his ribs, the ridges of his abdomen, the scars on his back. This was uncharted territory for her, but it seemed to be driving him crazy: he was moaning softly against her mouth, kissing her harder and harder, as if it would never be enough, not quite enough - — Cassandra Clare

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line — Duke Ellington

To my great surprise, Twitter is not housed in a silver pod that orbits Earth at supersonic speeds, vacuuming up and then dispersing digital bits of worldwide chitchat; it's in a big, bland office building in downtown San Francisco, near a bowling alley and an Old Navy. — Susan Orlean

He simply shook his head. 'If your point of reference is a glimpse you've caught of a business transaction conducted in an alley, I'd venture that you have no idea what I can do with a wall. — Courtney Milan

In the middle of the night, I was startled awake by the sharp smell of tequila. My eyes snapped open. The heath bush I'd transplanted from an alley off Divisadero stretched its needled arms over my head. Between the new growth and glowing bell-shaped blossoms, I saw the outline of a man bend over and snap a stem of my helenium. His tequila bottle leaned over as he did, alcohol splashing out of the top and landing on the shrub concealing my body. A girl behind him reached for the bottle. She sat down on the ground with her back to me and tilted her face to the sky. — Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest. — Albert Camus

Down an alley a washing woman has set out laundry in pans near the rubble of an old high-rise. Another is washing her body, carefully scrubbing under her sarong, its fabric clinging to her skin. Children run naked through the dirt, jumping over bits of broken concrete that were laid down more than a hundred years ago in the old Expansion. Far down the street the levees rise, holding back the sea. — Paolo Bacigalupi

I think an old-school Western would kind of be really up my alley and would be so fun, I'm so comfortable in that genre and around horses. — Kaley Cuoco

Love leaped out in front of us like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere, and struck us both at once. As lightning strikes, as a Finnish knife strikes! She, by the way, insisted afterwards that it wasn't so, that we had, of course, loved each other for a long, long time, without knowing each other, never having seen each other ... — Mikhail Bulgakov

Rule three, never underestimate nosy neighbors. Mrs. Rupp called and wanted to know why you were standing in the alley, looking into her windows, and she was wondering if she should call the police. I explained it was most likely *my* windows you were looking in and reminded her that *I* was the police, so she needn't bother with another phone call. — Janet Evanovich

But it does imply that the search for scapegoats - a particularly alluring pastime in individualistic cultures such as ours in the United States - is a blind alley. — Peter M. Senge

Anything else?" he asked, playing with my hair.
"Oh, yeah, there's a dragon in the alley behind the diner, hanging out with Nona."
Lend frowned at me, his warm fingers lingering on the back of my neck. "And this gets a mention after the color scheme for a dance and a new episode of a teen soap?"
"Priorities, Lend. Priorities. — Kiersten White

I am a dedicated madman, and that becomes its own training. If you can't resist, if the typewriter is like candy to you, you train yourself for a lifetime. Every single day of your life, some wild new thing to be done. You write to please yourself. You write for the joy of writing. Then your public reads you and it begins to gather around your selling a potato peeler in an alley, you know. The enthusiasm, the joy itself draws me. So that means every day of my life I've written. When the joy stops, I'll stop writing. — Ray Bradbury

Bye, ma'elskling."
She watched him walk away, down the alley.
"Same to you," she called.
Ma'elskling. My precious. — Kathryn James

Trying to micromanage the perfect vacation is always a disaster. That leads to terrible times. If you get lost and you just end up eating just anywhere, you know, you see a bunch of Venetians sitting around smoking cigarettes, eating something unrecognizable in a dark alley somewhere, chances are it's interesting. — Anthony Bourdain

Reyna had always thought of Jason Grace as the all-American boy. Thalia looked more like the girl who robbed all-American boys at knifepoint in an alley. — Rick Riordan

Our father came to sleep in our house that night. He carried a small suitcase with a black mourning suit and a pair of polished shoes. Corrigan stopped him as he made his way up the stairs. 'Where d'you think you're going?'Our father gripped the bannister. His hands were liverspotted and I could see him trembling in his pause. 'That's not your room,' sad Corrigan. Our father tottered on the stairs. He took another step up. 'Don't,' said my brother. His voice was clear, full, confidant. Our father stood stunned. He climbed one more step and then turned, descended, looked around, lost.
'My own sons,' he said.
We made a bed for him on a sofa in the living room, but even then Corrigan refused to stay under the same roof; he went walking in the direction of the city center and I wondered what alley he might be found in later that night, what fist he might walk into, whose bottle he might climb down inside. — Colum McCann

To tell you the honest-to-God truth: without Scientology, I would be dead. So, I can personally highly recommend it. — Kirstie Alley

It was pretty late and the streets were quiet so she was almost sure no one had seen her drag the soul eater into the alley ... where she cut his head off with a samurai sword. God, she loved her life. — Samantha Young

I clicked the gate shut and slipped down the alley. Through one fence after another, I caught glimpses of people in their dining rooms and living rooms, eating and watching TV dramas. Food smells drifted into the alley through kitchen windows and exhaust fans. One teenaged boy was practicing a fast passage on his electric guitar, with the volume turned down. In a second floor window, a tiny girl was studying at her desk, an earnest expression on her face. A married couple in a heated argument sent their voices out to the alley. A baby was screaming. A telephone rang. Reality spilled out into the alley like water from an overfilled bowl - as sound, as smell, as image, as plea, as response. — Haruki Murakami

Audrey's head spun. "You puked in the alley? Wow. You must really like him."
"Oh, God. Don't say that." Victoria bent her head over her knees and took slow, deep breaths.
"The vomiting seems to be her way of expressing her feelings toward Ford," Rachel told Audrey.
"Aw. And they say romance is dead." — Julie James

Fear can be good when you're walking past an alley at night or when you need to check the locks on your doors before you go to bed, but it's not good when you have a goal and you're fearful of obstacles. We often get trapped by our fears, but anyone who has had success has failed before. — Queen Latifah

Beauty is a blind alley. It is a mountain peak which once reached leads nowhere [ ... ] Beauty is that which satisfies the aesthetic instinct. But who wants to be satisfied? It is only to the dullard that enough is as good as a feast. Let us face it: beauty is a bit of a bore. — W. Somerset Maugham

Some of what makes growing up hard for famous kids is that they don't have room to do immature stuff. I was really happy that I could go to school and hang out behind the alley and be somewhat irresponsible. — Tavi Gevinson

Shortly after, the aqueous symphony of dawn began. The last day of the Walk came up wet and overcast. The wind howled down the almost-empty alley of the road like a lost dog being whipped through a strange and terrible place. — Stephen King

I always wish the hotels were like they are in movies and TV shows, where if you're in Paris, right outside your window is the Eiffel Tower. In Egypt, the pyramids are right there. In the movies, every hotel has a monument right outside your window. My hotel rooms overlook the garbage dumpster in the back alley. — Gilbert Gottfried

After driving 30-minutes East of Seattle, I expect to see a great bowling alley. But, as we pull into the parking lot, all I see are pot holes, a horse and Amish buggy, and no cars to speak of- broken down or otherwise. Even the building is in shambles, needs painted and looks a bit haunted. The old road sign reading- Flicker Lanes- is half-burnt out. Seeing the building's interior lights on, I'm reassured that the place is open- but then again, maybe they've been left on by mistake. "There's LOTS of NICE bowling alleys in SEATTLE," I said. "Why did we come ALL THIS WAY to go BOWLING?"
"I take it that you've never BEEN here before."
"I don't think ANYONE HAS. I don't even KNOW what PLANET we're on."
"I don't know what PLANET you're on either... but the rest of us are on your ANUS."
I half-smile, marveling at his wittiness. — Giorge Leedy

Usually one must go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your stature. — John Gielgud

There's a scream that can't be silenced.It's rising, growing louder and louder. It's the scream of a child abandoned, suddenly long ago. As the scream echoed then in that alley, it echoes now in my mind. It penetrates all the dark places. It slams into the loss, bounces against the regret.. and the pain. — Tom Taylor

Lorn passed a hand over her eyes, then staggered back a step and reeled into the alley's shadows behind her. She slid down one wall into a sagging crouch. — Steven Erikson

I know you're not ready to believe it," he added. "Just like I wasn't. Until I met you I thought I could never love again. But here I am, yelling it down an alley because I am not letting you go without a fight. You said you're not the same, so prove it. Prove you're not the scared little girl anymore and turn and face me like the woman I know you are. Because that woman has changed me too, Sophie. That woman has made me fall in love again. So don't you dare walk away from me. — Lindsay J. Pryor

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will get 'down the drain,' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. — Richard P. Feynman

The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream. — Jack Kerouac

I heard someone walk out of the alley behind me, and my body went tense and tight, despite my weariness. Then a young woman's voice said, in a passable British accent, "The Little People are easily startled, but they'll soon be back. And in greater numbers."
I sagged in sudden, exhausted relief. The bad guys hardly ever quote Star Wars. — Jim Butcher

I sort of feel sorry for the next man who gets me. I may just kill him with passion. He'd better be strong and have a good heart! — Kirstie Alley

When you see a white guy at three in the morning on your beat in an alley, you kind of - "What's this guy doing here?" — Joe Arpaio

That left two possibilities, really.
Possibility one: Magic was so incredibly opaque, convoluted, and impenetrable, that even though wizards and witches had tried their best to understand, they'd made little or no progress and eventually given up; and Harry would do no better.
Or ...
Harry cracked his knuckles in determination, but they only made a quiet sort of clicking sound, rather than echoing ominously off the walls of Diagon Alley.
Possibility two: He'd be taking over the world.
Eventually. Perhaps not right away. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I do think about The Flash often. I think that could be a really fun role to play at some point. That's right up my alley. I just want somebody to believe in me that I could be a Superhero. — Zachary Levi

Now I don't know if you realize it, but the film industry's a small world. It's like living in a tenement at one end of a back alley. Not only do you see everybody's dirty laundry, but once rumors start, you can't stop 'em. — Haruki Murakami

That's funny. You would think after being followed and shoved into a dark alley by a stranger, you would be at least a little shaken. Don't tell me, you are a black belt just waiting for the perfect moment to strike." He laughed soundlessly. "I mean your words do sound brave but your eyes and the fact that you're trembling like a scared little kitten say something else entirely." Even though the alley was submerged in darkness and shadows, it was obvious there was a devilish grin stretched across his face ... — Nicole Rae

Nanny Ogg was an attractive lady, which is not the same as being beautiful. She fascinated Casanunda. She was an incredibly comfortable person to be around, partly because she had a mind so broad it could accommodate three football fields and a bowling alley. — Terry Pratchett

Is, er, your friend a member of college staff?"
"No, Al's an artist. And, ah, he's my partner," Larry said. I like it when he calls me that.
I don't think Matthew's mum liked it. "How ... lovely. Is that how you met? Through ... art?"
Larry said "Yes" just as I said, "No, we met when I was having a piss in an alley. — J.L. Merrow

When we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, we're going to be having a shufti to see if it's solid, aren't we, we're not going to be asking, 'Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul? — J.K. Rowling

What's the safest thing to be when one is met by a gang of social outcasts in an alley? ... No, another social outcast! — S.E. Hinton

He'd missed the first wasp, when it built its paperfine gray house on the blistered paint of the windowframe, but soon the nest was a fist-sized lump of fiber, insects hurtling out to hunt the alley below like miniature copters buzzing the rotting contents of the dumpsters. — William Gibson

There he lay spooked, a spinning wheel in a celestial bowling alley. — Meg Rosoff

My mission is to grow business in Silicon Alley. — Jason Calacanis

Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that's through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality - you who have never known any - but to discover it. — Ayn Rand

After college, I went to Alley Theatre in Houston to work in their apprentice actor program. I thought I was gonna get discovered. It didn't happen. I moved back to Germantown, Tennessee, outside of Memphis, and taught at my old high school. — Chris Parnell

If the demand for self-knowledge is willed by fate and is refused, this negative attitude may end in real death. The demand would not have come to this person had he still been able to strike out on some promising by-path. But he is caught in a blind alley from which only self-knowledge can extricate him. If he refuses this then no other way is left open to him. Usually he is not conscious of his situation, either, and the more unconscious he is the more he is at the mercy of unforeseen dangers: he cannot get out of the way of a car quickly enough, in climbing a mountain he misses his foothold somewhere, out skiing he thinks he can negotiate a tricky slope, and in an illness he suddenly loses the courage to live. The unconscious has a thousand ways of snuffing out a meaningless existence with surprising swiftness. — C. G. Jung

THE CATER STREET HANGMAN CALLANDER SQUARE PARAGON WALK RESURRECTION ROW BLUEGATE FIELDS RUTLAND PLACE DEATH IN THE DEVIL'S ACRE CARDINGTON CRESCENT SILENCE IN HANOVER CLOSE BETHLEHEM ROAD HIGHGATE RISE BELGRAVE SQUARE FARRIERS' LANE THE HYDE PARK HEADSMAN TRAITORS GATE PENTECOST ALLEY ASHWORTH HALL BRUNSWICK GARDENS BEDFORD SQUARE HALF MOON STREET THE WHITECHAPEL CONSPIRACY SOUTHAMPTON ROW SEVEN DIALS LONG SPOON LANE BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS — Anne Perry

It had been a long time since a woman had aroused his interest as Amelia Hathaway had. The moment he had seen her standing in the alley, wholesome and pink-cheeked, her voluptuous figure contained in a modest gown, he had wanted her. He had no idea why, when she was the embodiment of everything that annoyed him about Englishwomen.
It was obvious Miss Hathaway had a relentless certainty in her own ability to organize and manage everything around her. Cam's usual reaction to that sort of female was to flee in the opposite direction. But as he had stared into her pretty blue eyes, and seen the tiny determined frown hitched between them, he had felt an unholy urge to snatch her up and carry her away somewhere and do something uncivilized. Barbaric, even.
Of course, uncivilized urges had always lurked a bit too close to his surface. — Lisa Kleypas

The struggle you see in the Republican Party today is the country club Republican versus the bowling alley Republican. Colin Powell brings us back to the country club image. He's an insider. He's a moderate. — Pete Du Pont

The thing about me is, I don't care what religion you are. If someone is attacking your religion, I will have your back, and I will defend you. I think that is the most repulsive thing a person can do, attack another person's faith. — Kirstie Alley

The New Age movement, for all the validity of its protest and the value of some of its recommendations, is in truth a very old blind alley. There is a very long history to remind us of what happens when nature is our ultimate point of reference ... Nature knows no ethics. There is no right and wrong in nature; the controlling realities are power and fertility. — Lesslie Newbigin

I never did go back to acting class. I was too busy working. — Kirstie Alley

She had stepped into the thin strip of earth that they claimed as their own. Bound by the last building on Brewster and a brick wall, they reigned in that unlit alley like dwarfed warrior kings. Born with the appendages of power, circumcised by the guillotine, and baptized with the steam from a million non reflective mirrors, these young men wouldn't be called upon to thrust a bayonet into an Asian farmer, target a torpedo, scatter their iron seed from a B-52 into the wound of the earth, point a finger to move a nation, or stick a pole into the moon
and they knew it. They only had that three-hundred-foot alley to serve them as stateroom, armored tank, and executioner's chamber. — Gloria Naylor

There's something I have to say," I said seriously, looking her in the eye.
She smiled. "Oookay." She was mocking me-mocking my tone-but I didn't care.
"Okay. Here it is. I love you," I said. "And I never, ever wanted to hurt you. It's like, the number one thing I never want to do, but somehow, I keep doing it. And I'm sorry, I just ... that's all I wanted to say all this time. All I was trying to do ... with that thing with your dad, not telling you ... was not to hurt you. And I'm sorry that I did.
Alley stared at me.
"And I'm sorry that I did it again. With the Chloe thing. Which was stupid. Like, really, really, stupid. And I-"
"Can you just stop, for a second?" Ally said, holding up a hand.
"What?" I said.
"Can you say the first part again?" she asked, rolling her fingers around for a rewind.
I racked my brain.
"Um ... I love you?" I said.
"That's the part, Cuz I love you, too. — Kieran Scott

Back then he'd hammered out rags as rough as the planks that made up that schoolhouse stage. Over the years he's taken a saw and rasp to those tunes and smoothed them at the edges, sanded them slowly over time with finer and finer grit paper, and applied a polish to them. The songs are comfortable now. People can take their shoes off to dance without fear of a spike in the foot; they can lie back on that smooth and waxed wood to take a nap in the afternoon or make love all night long. Oliver sees himself as a carpenter, a craftsman putting notes and melodies together, fitting them when they will, stepping back to rest and reconsider when they won't. — Richard J. Alley

There's a shot up the alley. Oh, it's just foul. — Jerry Coleman

Terry Pratchett's right up my alley ... give him a try! — Piers Anthony

And if you ever need self-validation,
Just meet me in the alley by the railway station — Morrissey

Mug your destiny in an alley and punch it until it gives you what you want"
pg 240 — Catherynne M Valente

I was always searching. I became a Buddhist in my twenties when I came to Los Angeles. I met a group of people who I really loved. — Alley Mills

Life is not a matter of choices! Life is handed to you, a couple of cards that have cycled through the grimy hands of hundreds of players before you. There are no aces hidden up your sleeve. There is no shortcut to success and happiness. Sleight of hand will only earn you a bloody nose and a thrashing in the alley outback. So instead, you play the few good cards you have and do what you can with the bad, and you play fair. There is no choice. — Kelseyleigh Reber

I live in New York City, and one day many years ago I was with a poet, Gregory Corso, walking through Greenwich Village. He pointed to a doorway in an alley that he said led to a tunnel under Manhattan, a tunnel he'd use to run from the cops. I started learning about old Prohibition-era speakeasy tunnels under the city, for running whiskey. — Ann Nocenti

You met a guy in an alley, and he kissed you?
Is he still alive, or do I need to provide you with an alibi? — I.D. Locke

We stood in the alley where we shot basketballs through hollowed crates and cracked jokes on the boy whose mother wore him out with a beating in front of his entire fifth-grade class. We sat on the number five bus, headed downtown, laughing at some girl whose mother was known to reach for anything - cable wires, extension cords, pots, pans. We were laughing, but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Decades ago, women suffered through horrifying back-alley abortions. Or, they used dangerous methods when they had no other recourse. So when the Republican Party launched an all-out assault on women's health, pushing bills to limit access to vital services, we had to ask: Why is the GOP trying to send women back ... to the back alley? — Lisa Edelstein

She had tried to imagine him as a young Gladiator in the arena. Back then he must have been as dangerous as a lean, half-starved alley cat. Now, the alley cat had long since vanished. What stood in his stead was a scarred and even more deadly lion who carried the weight of having lived for many years in his prime. — Thea Harrison