Barrows Quotes & Sayings

When grown-ups asked you to sit in a circle, they were usually about to tell you something you didn't want to hear. Ms. Aruba-Tate, Ivy and Bean's second-grade teacher, was forever gathering them in a circle for bad news. Like, the class fish died over the weekend. Or, everyone has to start using real punctuation. Or, the pencil sharpener is off-limits. Circles meant trouble. — Annie Barrows

I've learned that history is the autobiography of the historian, that ignoring the past is the act of a fool, and that loyalty does not mean falling into line, but stepping out of it for the people you love. — Annie Barrows

A hint: perhaps in this case, you should refrain from throwing the book at the audience when you finish. — Annie Barrows

I swung the door open and relaxed. She wasn't there. I stepped in and shut the door behind me. I had promised God I wouldn't touch anything. I'd just look at what was lying around. If Jane Eyre had only looked around a little, she might have saved herself a lot of heartache. — Annie Barrows

Every inch of space was used. As the road narrowed, signs receded upwards and changed to the vertical. Businesses simply soared from ground level and hung out vaster, more fascinatingly illuminated shingles than competitors. We were still in a traffic tangle, but now the road curved. Shops crowded the pavements and became homelier. Vegetables, spices, grocery produce in boxes or hanging from shop lintels, meats adangle - as always, my ultimate ghastliness - and here and there among the crowds the alarming spectacle of an armed Sikh, shotgun aslant, casually sitting at a bank entrance. And markets everywhere. To the right, cramped streets sloped down to the harbor. To the left, as we meandered along the tramlines through sudden dense markets of hawkers' barrows, the streets turned abruptly into flights of steps careering upwards into a bluish mist of domestic smoke, clouds of washing on poles, and climbing. Hong Kong had the knack of building where others wouldn't dare. — Jonathan Gash

There had been a problem in Bean's house. The problem was staples. Bean loved staples. She loved them so much that she had stapled things that weren't supposed to be stapled. The things looked better stapled, but her mother didn't think so, and now Bean was outside.
She was going to be outside for a long time. — Annie Barrows

When you want to organize knowledge. you will be careful to base the classification upon essential qualities. You will thus derive classes in which the members have the greatest amount of resemblance to one another and the greatest amount of difference from the members of other classes. But suppose that, instead of organizing knowledge, you set out to organize ignorance and prejudice. You will then do precisely the opposite.You will keep the classification vague and flexible, so that it can be made to include just whatever individuals you choose. — Barrows Dunham

It suddenly struck me that Dawsey is a lonesome person. I think it may be that he has always been lonely, but he didn't mind before, and now he minds. — Annie Barrows

Bean decided to pay attention to what Ms. Aruba-Tate was saying. "Today, class, we are having a special science lesson." Science! Bean stopped thinking about Colorado. Science was usually dirt or fish, and Bean liked both of them. — Annie Barrows

They have learned our language and pronunciation, and write as well as we do, and even better; for they are so bright that they learn everything with the greatest ease. — David Barrows

The first rule of snooping is to come at it sideways
when you began writing me dizzy letters about Alexander, I didn't ask if you were in love with him, I asked what his favorite animal was. And your answer told me everything I needed to know about him
how many men would admit that they loved ducks? — Annie Barrows

I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity. — Sydney Biddle Barrows

I have an idea for a new book. It's a novel about a beautiful yet sensitive author whose spirit is crushed by her domineering editor. Do you like it? — Annie Barrows

Mary Ann could no more endure a day without reading than she could grow feathers. — Annie Barrows

Never say anything on the phone that you wouldn't want your mother to hear at your trial. — Sydney Biddle Barrows

I could see why she felt attracted to Sam K. Barrows. Birds of a feather, or rather lizards of a scale. — Philip K. Dick

If you want an expert on war, you get a retired general. I'm not exactly a general, but I am retired. — Sydney Biddle Barrows

Often when I imagine you your wholeness cascades into many shapes. You run like a herd of luminous deer and I am dark, I am forest. You are a wheel at which I stand, whose dark spokes sometimes catch me up, revolve me nearer to the center. — Anita Barrows

You are so weird sometimes. — Annie Barrows

We clung to books and to our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us. — Annie Barrows

But what can I do? I can - she leapt into the abyss - join a ladies' club. There! That's respectable! That's something I can do! I can be ladylike. Why, I can be more ladylike than anyone, as long as I can keep myself from saying the first thing that pops into my mind. — Annie Barrows

If I could believe I had a soul, all by myself, then I could listen to its tidings all by myself. — Annie Barrows

I was naughty. I wasn't bad. Bad is hurting people, doing evil. Naughty is not hurting anyone. Naughty is being amusing. — Sydney Biddle Barrows

The wonderful thing about books
and the thing that made them such a refuge for the islanders during the Occupation
is that they take us out of our time and place and understanding, and transport us not just into the world of the story, but into the world of our fellow readers, who have stories of their own. — Annie Barrows

Society has no qualms about a masseuse who is paid for touching people, or about laborers, or professional athletes or dancers, all of whom make a living with their bodies. Why should we make an exception for sex? — Sydney Biddle Barrows

After I found April Barrows, I felt I had found a soul mate. Her stuff is exactly what I was looking for. — Suzy Bogguss

If you had duct tape, you were prepared for anything. — Annie Barrows

We are transformed--magically--into the literary society each time we pass a book along, each time we ask a question about it, each time we say, 'If you liked that, I bet you'd like this.' Whenever we are willing to be delighted and share our delight, as Mary Ann [Shaffer] did, we are part of the ongoing story of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
~Annie Barrows (niece of Mary Ann Shaffer, afterword The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) — Mary Ann Shaffer

And she's certainly a good cook." Miss Betts sighed. "The epitaph of the spinster. — Annie Barrows

The evil is not that you cannot change human nature. The evil is that human nature cannot change you. — Barrows Dunham

I have since wondered, of course, how my life would have been different if I'd decided to stay home that morning. This is what's called the enigma of history, and it can drive you out of your mind if you let it. — Annie Barrows

Would you kiss a rat on the lips? — Annie Barrows

The greatest resource a worship leader has is his relationship with his wife. — Cliff Barrows

He was lying; I could hear it the way you hear a tune and you know how it goes. I wondered how many times I'd heard him lie, to know so well what it sounded like. — Annie Barrows

I may be good for nothing, but I'm never bad for nothing. — Sydney Biddle Barrows

If I could have anything I wanted, I would choose story without end, and it seems I have lots of company in that. — Annie Barrows

We have a specific approach to computer support here. It's all very time sensitive and report driven. We want what we need when we need it but couldn't care less how that happens. — Frederick Barrows

Of happy men that have the power to die, And grassy barrows of the happier dead. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Think of the compost bin as a living organism. It is, in fact, made up of colonies of bacteria. A live bin is hot at the center and produces a thick, loamy substance. If a bin is cold and dead, but has true compost at the center, it needs to be turned. Use a pitchfork or shovel to mix and shuffle the bin's contents. — Amelia Barrows

The Christian faith is a singing faith, and a good way to express it and share it with others is in community singing. — Cliff Barrows

No soul can withstand the sun's bones of light and reason dims when darkness falls - so we shape barrows in the night for you and your kin." "Forgive my interruption, then," said I. "The dead never interrupt," said the mason, "they but arrive. — Steven Erikson

Sex is a commodity just like anything else. — Sydney Biddle Barrows

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
The emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in full resonance with your world. Use it for once.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost. — Rainer Maria Rilke

You'll accidentally find in barrows of books wrought-iron lines of long-buried poems, handle them with the care that respects ancient but terrible weapons.. — Bill Vaughan

A call girl is simply someone who hates poverty more than she hates sin. — Sydney Biddle Barrows

Put your hand on your heart to keep it from flying off to the lovely magical literary island Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows have created in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. This novel is a delightful mix of fine writing, powerful emotions, glorious settings and amazing characters who deal with life in a way that will have readers falling in love on every single page. — Kris Radish

You know how I love talking about books, and you know how I adore receiving compliments. — Annie Barrows

The smells arose from everything, everywhere, flowing together and remaining as a sickening, tantalizing discomfort. They flowed from the delicatessen shop with its uncovered trays of pickled herrings, and the small open casks of pickled gherkins and onions, dried fish and salted meat, and sweaty damp walls and floor; from the fish shop which casually defied every law of health; from the kosher butcher, and the poulterer next door, where a fine confetti of new-plucked feathers hung nearly motionless in the fetid air; and from sidewalk gutters where multitudes of flies buzzed and feasted on the heaped-up residue of fruit and vegetable barrows. — E.R. Braithwaite

You're right, Jottie, but what good is it? Rightness is nothing. You can't live on it. You might as well eat ashes." I glanced at Father, his bloodshot eyes and the stain on his pants. I loved him so. Once more, I tried to explain. "This is all we can do; it's all we're allowed. We can't go back. The only thing time leaves for us to decide" -- I picked up Father's hand and held it tight-- "is whether or not we're going to hate each other. — Annie Barrows

All of us see a story according to our own lights. None of us is capable of objectivity. You — Annie Barrows

The more you act like a lady, the more he'll act like a gentleman. — Sydney Biddle Barrows

Whatever gave you the idea we were like everybody else? — Annie Barrows

Grandpa, that's something I never am ... Lonesome in my spirits — Annie Barrows

Time softened on Sundays; it stretched itself out in vast rubbery lengths, and by two o'clock, there was more of it than would ever be needed for anything. There was no point in reading a book, writing a letter, or playing a game, because time was too flaccid ever to proceed to the moment in which the plot would twist, the letter would be sent, or the game would be won. — Annie Barrows

Reading good books spoils you for enjoying bad books. — Annie Barrows

Ivy! It's a natural disaster! You have to be there! — Annie Barrows

I am a grown woman
mostly
and I can guzzle champagne with whomever I choose. — Annie Barrows

That meant that Nancy was the grown-up, the one who got to decide everything. And it meant that Bean was the little, boring, poopy baby who didn't get to decide anything. — Annie Barrows