Back Road Quotes & Sayings

The mind is like a muddy road. Two ruts run down its center, from all the carts that have passed that way. no matter how many carts try to roll alongside the ruts, to stay out of the mud, sooner or later, a turn here or a jolt there will send them down into the ruts for good. Just so is the mind. As hard as we try to keep our thoughts out of the old ways, the old patterns, the old ruts, any little jog or jerk will send them right back down into the mud." -The Chronicler — Adam Gidwitz

By taking to the road, we free ourselves of baggage, both physical and psychological. We walk back to our original condition, to our best selves. — Robyn Davidson

When you ran out the tunnel at the old Easter Road for a derby game, you'd get a spittal right on the back of your head. They were spitting on you as you ran out, which actually helped get you going. It was some place. — Drew Busby

People are funny. They want the front of the bus, the middle of the road and the back of the church. - Mrs. Miracle — Debbie Macomber

Ben Says: No matter how long you've been traveling down a wrong road ... you always have time to turn back.
Now ... just do it! — Timothy Pina

Well, it is so difficult right now when you look out on the road and how fast people go and the more and more cars you see out there, for teenagers, you'd think a kid that literally, a few years before, was sitting back in a car seat in the back seat is now behind the wheel. — Amy Klobuchar

By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive.
Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
- Albert Schweitzer — Albert Schweitzer

I see hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever'body wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out there. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody never gets no land. It's just in their head. — John Steinbeck

We are all on the same road, some ahead of us and some behind. We do not always recognize ourselves as being among those who are struggling farther back, and misunderstand, scorn, and even persecute the ones who move ahead of us. History is littered with such as these: eccentrics, geniuses, idealists among those most noticeable. These change the world by force, though the change most often does not take place during their own time, they are so far ahead of it and therefore so rarely understood. — Nell Gavin

And walking back from the river I remember the galling loneliness of my adolescence, from which I do not seem to have completely escaped. It is the sense of the voyeur, the lonely, lonely boy with no role in life but to peer in at the lighted windows of other people's contentment and vitality. It seems comical
farcical
that, having been treated so generously, I should be struck with this image of a kid in the rain walking along the road shoulders of East Milton. — John Cheever

And before you ask, no, you're not driving, Myrnin. I remember the last time.'
'That accident was not my fault.'
'You were the only one on the road, and the mailbox actually didn't leap out in front of you. No arguments. You sit in the back, too. — Rachel Caine

morning, a merchant loaded his donkey with bags of salt to go to the market in order to sell them. The merchant and his donkey were walking along together. They had not walked far when they reached a river on the road. Unfortunately, the donkey slipped and fell into the river and noticed that the bags of salt loaded on his back became lighter. — Tanveer Ahmed

Sometimes I look back and I am shocked. Everyday of my life I have prepared for success, worked for it, waited for it, and you don't notice how the days pass until nearly a lifetime is finished. Then it hits you
the thing you have been waiting for has already gone by. And it was going in the other direction. It's like I've been waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus that was already full. p. 265 — Monica Ali

He wasn't partner material though, in the work or life sense. He was old and set in his grouchy ways. Michaels might play with him while they were on the road, get his itch scratched - and Judge would enjoy it immensely - but when the gorgeous young stud got back to his real life and a fresh, young blond stallion walked by with a trim body, perfectly groomed hair with not a strand of gray in it, Judge would be yesterday's trash. Judge coughed, startled by the annoyance he felt at that assumption. It — A.E. Via

When I got out of the hospital, it was one of those classic things - you're looking death in the eye, and it changes you. I thought, I ought to go back on the road. — Robert Hunter

The lye clinging in the exact shape of Tyler's kiss is a bonfire or a branding iron or an atomic pile meltdown on my hand at the end of a long, long road I picture miles away from me. Tyler tells me to come back and be with him. My hand is leaving, tiny and on the horizon at the end of the road. — Chuck Palahniuk

Once you've started down that road to self-discovery, no matter how treacherous the path before you, you can't turn back. The universe doesn't allow it. — Lisa Unger

The three of us do not go out very often as the three of us. I think Daniel is perfect for Jed, which is the highest compliment I can give. But my friendship isn't with him, and Jed understands that. When we hit the road, we hit it together alone.
We get to the bridge, out undestined destination. Even though there's no sign, no arrow, Jed turns at the last minute and parks us in a verge right before the bridge leaves the ground.
The trunk pops open, and Jed runs round back to retrieve a bag of oranges and a sweatshirt that fits me better.
Shall we make like lizards and leap? he asks.
I never felt the urge to jump off a bridge, but there are times I have wanted to jump out of my life, out of my skin.
Would you stroll me down the promenade instead? I ask back.
Most certainly, my splendid.
There is no word for our kind of friendship. Two people tho don't see each other a lot, but can make each other effortlessly happy. — David Levithan

I had traveled eight thousand miles around the American continent and I was back on Times Square; and right in the middle of a rush hour, too, seeing with my innocent road-eyes the absolute madness and fantastic hoorair of New York with its millions and millions hustling forever for a buck among themselves, the mad dream-grabbing, taking, giving, sighing, dying, just so they could be buried in those awful cemetery cities beyond Long Island City. — Jack Kerouac

On the way back down the road, he passes me in his car, our eyes meet for just a second and he smiles at me. — Paula Hawkins

For decades I've had an intense interest in the history and mythology of the Silk Road, I think in part because an aspect of me loves the resonance of long distance travel as a theme or anchor, if you will, for narrative. The ways that cultures rise and fade across centuries, the ways cultures connect and conflict, absorb and reject, transform or remain static: As a writer this is thematic content that never gets old for me. A million million stories rise out of the endless back and forth of cultural contact in all its best and worst aspects, and everything in between. Weave that within a story of adventure or empire or a journey into unknown spaces and I'm in writer and reader hog heaven. — Kate Elliott

Empathic listening takes time, but it doesn't take anywhere near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you're already miles down the road; to redo; to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems; to deal with the results of not giving people psychological air. — Stephen Covey

The bike crunches along the gravel path, weaving around the potholes that could present danger to someone who didn't know the road like the back of their hand. — Jane Green

Once, I was out of the house 93 days in a year. I was missing grandparents' days at schools and kids' birthdays and Valentine's Day, not to mention the fact that when you're on the road, you can't get anything done. I had to learn to say 'No,' cut back on travel. — Jerry Spinelli

Dear Dan, Why is the divorce rate so high?
D.A.: It is hard to imagine we can be happy with any decision we make even one year down the road, much less when we look back at our decisions five, ten, twenty, or even fifty years later. Frankly, I am amazed by how low the divorce rate is. — Dan Ariely

Madonna, she still has not showed, we see this empty cage now corrode, where her cape of the stage once had flowed, the fiddler he now steps to the road, on the back of the fish truck that loads, while my conscience explodes. — Bob Dylan

In most countries, it is possible to visit zoos and see bored animals pacing back and forth in cages, with nothing to do but wait for the next meal. Circuses are even worse places for animals. Their living conditions are deplorable, especially in travelling circuses where cages have to be small so that they can go on the road. — Peter Singer

Garraty thought that memories were like a line drawn in the dirt. The further back you went the scuffier and harder to see that line got. Until finally there was nothing but smooth sand and the black hole of nothingness that you came out of. The memories were in a way like the road. Here it was real and hard and tangible. But that early road, that nine in the morning road, was far back and meaningless. — Stephen King

After about half an hour, Mr. Sorenson turns onto a narrow unpaved road. Dirt rises around us as we drive, coating the windshield and side windows. We pass more fields and then a copse of birch tree skeletons, cross through a dilapidated covered bridge over a murky stream still sheeted with ice, turn down a bumpy dirt road bordered by pine trees. Mr. Sorenson is holding a card with what looks like directions on it. He slows the truck, pulls to a stop, looks back toward the bridge. Then he peers out the grimy windshield at the trees ahead. "No goldarn signs," he mutters. He puts his foot on the pedal and inches forward. Out — Christina Baker Kline

Cinderella was such a dork. She left behind her glass slipper at the ball and then went right back to her step-monster's house. It seems to me she should have worn the glass slipper always, to make herself easier to find. I always hoped that after the prince found Cinderella and they rode away in their magnificent carriage, after a few miles she turned to him and said, Could you drop me off down the road please? Now that I've finally escaped my life of horrific abuse, I'd like to see something of the world, you know? ... I'll catch back up with you later, Prince, once I've found my own way. — Rachel Cohn

I am guilty of many things when it comes to him. But sometimes, illogically, I feel guiltiest for this. I opened the van door, I invited him inside. And while I didn't drive off the road, I instead drove him somewhere bleak and cold and colorless, and left him standing there, where, back where I had collected him, the landscape shimmered with color, the sky fizzed with fireworks, and he stood openmouthed in wonder. — Hanya Yanagihara

Grinning again, Hayes walks back to his office. "I'll visit your douche-in-law after I get a few other things done." "Thank you." "Remember these heartwarming moments when I forget your birthday or name down the road. Oh, and I'm not giving you shit for Secretaries Day." "I'll steal some of your emergency cash from the sugar container and buy myself something for Secretaries Day." I hear Hayes laugh quietly. — Bijou Hunter

At one time or another, we all stand at the crossroads and at the fork in the road.We can go back where it's comfortable, predictable and easy. Or we can go forward. If you go back, my friend, you will miss the ride of your life! — Donna Schultz

For kilometres on end the road was totally jammed with vehicles drawn up three or four abreast - petrol tankers, ammunition trucks, teams of horses,ambulances. It was impossible to move forwards or back. Russian combat aircraft now arrived in wave after wave, and threw bombs into that unprotected, inextricable mass. This is what hell must be like. — Christopher Duffy

I don't take up the story and follow it as if it were a road, taking me somewhere ... I go into it, and
move back and forth
and settle here and there, and stay in it for a while. It is more
like a house.
Alice Munro on reading. — Alice Munro

In 1945, at the beginning of the Cold War, our leaders led us astray. We need to think of the Cold War as an aberration, a wrong turn. As such, we need to go back to where we were in 1945 - before we took the road to a permanent war economy, a national security state and a foreign policy based on unilateralism and cowboy triumphalism. — Kai Bird

Perfection consists in a constant perseverance to acquire the virtues and become proficient in their practice, because on God's road, not to advance is to fall back since man never remains in the same condition. — Vincent De Paul

Go outside. Don't tell anyone and don't bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don't try to get anything out of it, because you won't. Don't try to make use of it, because you can't. And that's the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realise that that is enough to be happy.
There's a whole world out there, right outside your window. You'd be a fool to miss it. — Charlotte Eriksson

It snowed all day long, fortunately it didn't stay on the road. It was very, very cold today. Fortunately, the wind was at my back. The terrain was rolly but not big hills. The first miles were like usual tough, but I felt quite good from there till the end of 10 miles. — Terry Fox

It's been a long road back to health and fitness for me. I am just glad to have been given the opportunity to do what I love most. — Jonah Lomu

If I had my way, the trip's every moment would be a Moment - ripe with meaning, worthy of at least a sidebar or infographic in my personal history book. I looked back to the road, followed the pavement — Brian Benson

They held hands and knew that only the coffin would lie in the earth; the bubbly laughter and the press of fingers in the palm would stay aboveground forever. At first, as they stood there, their hands were clenched together. They relaxed slowly until during the walk back home their fingers were laced in as gentle a clasp as that of any two young girlfriends trotting up the road on a summer day wondering what happened to butterflies in the winter. — Toni Morrison

'Rust' really started with the passing of my dad, and me really looking back inward to my self about where I stand with all things on a faith/religious/spiritual level. And it's really put me on this interesting road and very educational, I might add, road back to understanding the role of faith in God and Christ in my life. — Corbin Bernsen

You know, with bands like Kiss back out on the road and Aerosmith coming out, we are going to be a band like that, in the sense that it's a big rock band. — Steve Brown

You have been here before.

The highway winding north through dark New England forests. White dunes towering above the sides of the road, looking like the moon.

You can come back. Even after you hurt each other too deeply to comprehend. Even after the impossible becomes just that. Too far out of reach even to dream.

Love remembers the places where it touched down, left an invisible trail on your bodies. Follow it back. You can follow it back to them. — Kate Scelsa

I stopped right in the middle of the road. There was no traffic. Before heading back towards my flat to get the number I paused for a while, I don't know how long, and stood in what had been the marksmen's sightlines. I turned the palms of my hands outwards, closed my eyes and thought about that memory of just before the accident, being buffeted by wind. Remembering it sent a tingling from the top of my legs to my shoulders and right up into my neck. It lasted for just a moment-but while it did it felt not-neutral. I felt different, intense: both intense and serene at the same time. I remember feeling this way very well: standing there, passive, with my palms turned outwards, feeling intense and serene. — Tom McCarthy

As it happens, Chicago is the nation's leader in municipal privatization efforts. That's right: The city that conservatives portray as the citadel of the power-grabbing, government-growing left has been selling itself off in pieces for years. It signed a 99-year lease for the Chicago Skyway, a toll road in the city's South Side, back in 2005. — Thomas Frank

Brake lights, brake lights, brake lights; a domino topple of red stop lights ripples back from some non-event up ahead. Some idiot blew his nose too abruptly and a Mexican wave of mini traffic lights all went red in neat little pairs.

There are no green lights on a motorway to tell you that you can go. You just go when you can. Another short burst of hemmed in freedom until the next tsunami of 'stop' floods the road. — Christian Cook

I want to tell him that deep down each time Hannah looked at him she was grateful it was him because Jude did something that the others didn't. He came back for her. — Melina Marchetta

They put spotlights on me standing there in the road in jeans and workclothes, with the big woeful rucksack a-back, and asked:-"Where are you going?" which is precisely what they asked me a year later under Television floodlights in New York, "Where are you going?"-Just as you cant explain to the police, you cant explain to society "Looking for peace. — Jack Kerouac

I climb behind the steering wheel... I drive off immediately without once looking back; it's a long journey but it leads to freedom. — Corinne Hofmann

So we spend a few months on the road, looking for the Alcani. And say we find them. Either the Dragon Solstice happens, and we save the world, or it doesn't happen, and we've still found a lost people, and all it cost us was a few months on the road. Besides, we've seen the scars all over Tenjia and Duskland. The burned forests and fields of ash. There aren't enough faeries to bring back the land, not at the rate the dragons are scorching it. I think it makes sense that the unicorns are supposed to be here, protecting the land, somehow. Only an idiot would ignore a disaster she could see with her own eyes, stick her head in the sand, and hope it all works out just fine on its own. — Joseph Robert Lewis

two Florida Highway Patrol cars and a third, black car pulled up in front of the house, and several white men emerged, among them the deputies Campbell and Yates. "Where is the guy that was with you last night?" Yates asked Shepherd, and what began with that question led to the beatings he and Irvin endured on the deserted clay road outside of Groveland. "They must have beat us about a half hour," Shepherd told the lawyers, who were at once riveted and appalled by his testimony. After the beating, he and Irvin were shoved back into the patrol car. Irvin's shirt was drenched in blood, and when he reached his hand up to his head he felt "a big chunk knocked out of it." A patrolman told them to scoot up to the edge of the seat so their blood wouldn't drip onto the upholstery. — Gilbert King

There was only one road back to L.A. - U.S. Interstate 15. Just a flat-out high speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo. Then onto the Hollywood Freeway, and straight on into frantic oblivion. Safety. Obscurity. — Hunter S. Thompson

So try to reveal your plan on a Friday night before you'll be dropping both kids off at friends' houses Saturday morning, for instance. When your kids start getting unruly, quietly pull over to a safe place (the side of the road, a parking lot, etc.). Turn off the car and pull a book or magazine out of the glove compartment. Don't say a word. When it's quiet, start up the car and pull back onto the road. — Amy McCready

What I've learned in my life, it's a very interesting social study for me, to go back and forth between being the guy at home and being the guy on the road and being the guy in studio and being the guy in the interview. The environment around you has so much to do with your character, and when I'm home, my character really changes quite a bit. — John Mayer

Someone was always leaving
and never coming back.
The wooden houses wait like old wives
along this road; they are everywhere,
abandoned, leaning, turning gray. — Lisel Mueller

Here's a taxidermist's," Bill said. "Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?"
"Come on," I said. "You're pie-eyed."
"Pretty nice stuffed dogs," Bill said. "Certainly brighten up your flat."
"Come on."
"Just one stuffed dog. I can take 'em or leave 'em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog."
"Come on."
"Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog."
"We'll get one on the way back."
"All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault. — Ernest Hemingway,

Along this road, we won't stop moving forward
Not even if we become separated from one another.
For us, most of all, there was never a time, never a place where you could just stand still
But even so, if there were times when we were afraid, when we'd look back on it all and wonder
We'd just say that is was our destiny, wouldn't we?
So we started off, all walking down the same road — Tite Kubo

The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting. — Charles Dickens

Back in the car, we pass turnoffs for the Lakotas Buffalo Reservation and several pioneer homesteads turned into state monuments. There are bronze National Historic Site markers every five miles or so along the road. The quiet, the utter lack of people makes me feel watched. I continue glancing in the rearview as I drive, searching for pursuit. — Tessa Gratton

A home to come back to every day of their lives.
Where they would all belong or long to be.
A place on the Jellicoe Road. — Melina Marchetta

You're a good Irishman, right?" When Butch nodded, V said, "Irish, Irish ... let me think. Yeah ... " Vishous's eyes sobered, and in a voice that cracked, he said, "May the road rise to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rains fall soft upon your fields. And ... my dearest friend ... until we meet again may the Lord hold you in the palm of His hand. — J.R. Ward

Here they are, all in one place. Circle back to them when you need some poetic shine.
It is not revolutions and upheavals that clear the road to better days,
but revelations, and lavishness of someone's soul inspired, and ablaze. — Boris Pasternak

I've been arguing on the side of a dirt road with a petulant singer who's wearing a guitar on his back. This entire scene is a mess, and maybe we're a mess, too. But it's still him and still me, and there's still that feeling of possibility - the one that sparks like a Roman candle inside me as his lips touch mine. And it's a start. — Emery Lord

If somebody takes the parking place you were waiting for, I tend to kind of let it roll off my back. Maybe I'm harboring a lot of something and it will all explode somewhere down the road, but I tend to just let it slide off my back. — Steve Carell

A bartender named Murphy once told me to be careful when I hit the road because sometimes the road hits back. He was right. — Patrick Thomas

Each time my mother went psychotic, I hoped it would be the last time. Afterward she would tell me, 'I think that was the final episode. I think I had a breakthrough.' And I would believe-for a few months-that it was true. That she was back to stay. Maybe it was like having a rock star mother who was always on the road. Were there Benatar children? Did they sit around and wonder if their mom's Hell is for Children tour was going to be her last tour? — Augusten Burroughs

But by us doing a lot on the road, we were able to afford things like videos on the tours, cartoons that we'd open up the shows with. We were doing that way back when and now it's the hippest thing to do. We're just coming back around, I guess trying to play catch-up. — Bootsy Collins

Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To go on the road and see people sing my own lyrics back to me is just fantastic. — Dave Gahan

If something upset her, she usually talked about it or cried and then got on the road to getting over it or changing it. ... Kate had a tendency to bury her hurts deep inside and when they tried to rear their ugly heads, she effectively pushed them right back down. Kate gave the appearance of handling upsets well, when in actuality she did not handle them at all. — Lori Wick

There he is, bent over the page, with a monocle in his right eye, wholly devoted to the noble but rugged task of ferreting out the error. He has already promised himself to write a little monograph in which he will relate the finding of the book and the discovery of the error, if there really is one hidden there. In the end, he discovers nothing and contents himself with possession of the book. He closes it, gazes at it, gazes at it again, goes to the window and holds it in the sun. The only copy! At this moment a Caesar or a Cromwell passes beneath his window, on the road to power and glory. He turns his back, closes the window, stretches in his hammock, and fingers the leaves of the book slowly, lovingly, tasting it sip by sip ... An only copy! — Machado De Assis

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. - The Road of Kings. The — Robert E. Howard

George Strait is the king and Kenny Chesney is about as big as it gets right now, though I wouldnt mind going back out on the road with him. Maybe I could go out on the road with some singers from other genres. — Dierks Bentley

Not the first time. I didn't think my heart could stand it. But the airplane is a wonderful thing. You are still in one place when you arrive at the other. The airplane is faster than the heart. You arrive quickly and you leave quickly. You don't grieve too much. And there is something else about the airplane. You can go back many times to the same place. And something strange happens if you go back often enough. You stop grieving for the past. You see that the past is something in your mind alone, that it doesn't exist in real life. You trample on the past, you crush it. In the beginning it is like trampling on a garden. In the end you are just walking on ground. That is the way we have to learn to live now. The past is here." He touched his heart. "It isn't there." And he pointed at the dusty road. I — V.S. Naipaul

I am trying now to be entirely honest. I did actually comfort in the thought that the Devil had, on Strawless Common, defeated God. I much preferred that thought to the thought that God hadn't cared, hadn't helped Robin. I thought all the way back to the story of Eden. God, all-loving, all-wise, had surely wanted people to be happy and healthy and good; it was the Devil who spoiled it all ... and since so many people were miserable and sickly and bad the Devil must indeed by very powerful. The lifeless, voiceless thing, lately a singing boy, which they had cut down and put under a sack in the barn to await an unhallowed cross-road grave seemed to me to prove the power of the Devil.
Lady Alice Rowhedge — Norah Lofts

As a kid, I imagined lots of different scenarios for my life. I would be an astronaut. Maybe a cartoonist. A famous explorer or rock star. Never once did I see myself standing under the window of a house belonging to some druggie named Carbine, waiting for his yard gnome to steal his stash so I could get a cab back to a cheap motel where my friend, a neurotic, death-obsessed dwarf, was waiting for me so we could get on the road to an undefined place and a mysterious Dr. X, who would cure me of mad cow disease and stop a band of dark energy from destroying the universe. — Libba Bray

darted a look out the window and then back to him. He kept that same faint smile but he watched the road. Houses passed us on either side in a blur of colors overwhelmed by the white of the snow. We shot through an intersection and the traffic light made me stare. I turned back to him. "What's your name?" He looked over at me for a flicker before turning back to the road. "Reed." I nodded. It was a nice — Robert J. Crane

We can make these changes if we are willing to unite and stand together. The road to a sustainable future is clear, and the technologies are ready and cost-efficient. The only thing holding us back is the lack of political will. And with the crisis at hand, this is no excuse for failing to fight for the future we want for generations to come. We must move forward fearlessly to build a mass movement with the political power necessary to create a truly sustainable energy future. We must do this - it's a matter of life and death. — Wenonah Hauter

Tess passed by the Church's sign, and then made the turn right. Her expectations for a degree of improvement were met with passed echoes of indecisive hand claps from mental bodied insecurities that infiltrated her subconscious with a disruptive applause in an attempt to divert her focus from the road of progression by putting it back on her publicized devastations. — Calvin W. Allison

Remember that no piece of honestly conducted research is ever wasted, even if it seems so at the time. Put it away in a drawer, and ten, twenty or thirty years down the road, it will come back and help you in ways you never anticipated. — Anthony James Leggett

When I was a comic in the 1980s, I was on the road somewhere every day, and I'd get back to the hotel, and it was Carson and Letterman, and I looked forward to that all day. — Jerry Seinfeld

with a series of taps from his wand. They heaved their luggage back in, put Hedwig on the back seat, and got into the front. "Check that no one's watching," said Ron, starting the ignition with another tap of his wand. Harry stuck his head out of the window: Traffic was rumbling along the main road ahead, but their street was empty. — J.K. Rowling

The two of them walked toward the road and the stone marker. Behind them, other cars were pulling out. A woman began screaming abruptly. Unconsciously, Garraty and McVries drew closer together. Neither of them looked back. Ahead of them was the road, wide and black. — Stephen King

On that walk around the building, two sets of cops coming out stopped to tell our guys to hustle us inside so they could head back out on the road. Accidents everywhere. A pileup on
each of two major roads. "Welcome to winter," one said. "When fifty percent of drivers should have their licenses temporarily suspended. — Kelley Armstrong

I really didn't even have time to get that many lessons, to be honest, because I was suddenly on the road. I was kind of thrown in the deep end. But that wasn't a bad thing when I look back at it. — Caroline Corr

Somewhere a million miles away, the girl I once loved was going down her road, and I was stuck back on mine. — Jennifer Flackett

As I savored the meal, I struggled against the dark force that kept tugging at me, telling me I was never going to leave; adhering to my consciousness like sap, or tar, or glue; enveloping me in a sticky sickness that drained my vitality. I felt myself growing old as I sat there, the joints stiffening, the bones aching, the sense of identity melting away like a forgotten candle left to burn itself out. As I settled back into my cot for the evening hibernation, I understood I had been captured. I realized my spirit was ensnared. I knew what must be done. Whatever the cost, I told myself, I would be back on the road at dawn. — Steven Hubbell

How to identify love by knowing what it's not: love doesn't use a fist. Love never calls you fat or lazy or ugly. Love doesn't laugh at you in front of friends. It is not in Love's interest for your self-esteem to be low. Love is a helium-based emotion; Love always takes the high road. Love does not make you beg. Love does not make you deposit your paycheck into its bank account. Love certainly never, never, never brings the children into it. Love does not ask or even want you to change. But if you change, Love is as excited about this change as you are, if not more so. And if you go back to the way you were before you changed, Love will go back with you. Love does not maintain a list of your flaws and weaknesses. Love believes you. — Augusten Burroughs

I get back in the Continental and continue down the road to the cafe. Then I pull in and there's Larry Johnson's '57 Ford pickup in the parking lot. As I enter the little cafe, I see Larry and Briggs in the corner, drinking some coffee and having a late breakfast. I go right over and sit down with them. We don't say much. David says something about Kirby getting a job at one of the studios. Kirby is very good with his hands and can fix anything, plus he has a very friendly personality. We are happy for him. Larry has to make a call and gets up, heading for the pay phone in the corner. He has us get him another coffee when the waitress comes back. Briggs looks at me and asks what I've been doing. — Neil Young

There are moments in every girls life that are bigger than we know at the time. when you look back, you say that was one of those life-changing fork in the road moments and I didn't see it coming and then there are the moments that you know are big that whatever you do next there will be an impact. Your life could go one of two directions, DO or DIE
- Belly Conklin — Jenny Han

I turned back. Just put one foot in front of the other. Nothing had changed except the color of the road. — Danielle Paige

We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can't headline a movie because black women don't translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it's everything that people don't see out there. — Viola Davis

Your footsteps are the road, wanderer, and nothing else
there is no road, it is born of walking
and looking back, you gaze upon the path
to which you never shall return
there is no road, wanderer
only wakes upon the sea — Antonio Machado

I saw 'The Exorcist' at the cinema when I was quite young, maybe 14. When I went back home, my mum and dad weren't in, so I had to wait for them on the main road. I were too scared to enter the house. — Sean Bean

It's really important to me to go to church, which is sometimes tough when I get back from road trips late on Saturday night, but I try to make it a priority to go every week. — Jeremy Lin

Everything started to move in slow motion. A vehicle was coming up the hill in the opposite direction, facing us but in its own lane. With vehicles parked on both sides of the road, this meant that there was just a narrow passage area for both vehicles to pass through. However, he had yet to reduce his speed, and now I knew which car he was going to hit. I was frozen stiff with fear in the front passenger seat, as I helplessly watched him slam into the back of a parked car. I was not wearing a seat belt, so upon impact my head crashed into the windshield. I was then slammed back into my seat, but with such force that everything went black. — Drexel Deal

I saw this sign posted once, it said, "Blasting Zone Ahead." Wow. Shouldn't that read: "Road Closed?" What do you mean there's a blasting zone? What am I supposed to do? "Hey-uh, you might wanna buckle up. Blasting zone coming up. Yeah. Just saw the sign. Put the helmets on back there! Yeah I think we're- (Pow!)- Oh! We're getting close! (Pow!)- Oh! This is gonna be a bad blasting zone! Remember that last one-we lost Billy?" — Brian Regan

My fans do deserve to see me back out on the road. — Christina Aguilera