Blood Line Quotes & Sayings

Squinting in the darkness Anya could just make out a strange curving symbol scratched into the bark. Baba Zosia scored a line through it, disfiguring the symbol. Anya felt something in the air change and give, like the forest had let out a breath it had been holding around them. Something like static pricked the back of her neck as Baba Zosia cut her finger and smeared blood on the tree. The strange symbol melted into the bark, healing the tree to appear like nothing had been carved on it to begin with. Lifting her hands towards the campsite Baba Zosia started to chant softly in the complicated language of the tribe. Magic thrummed through the air, making Anya's own flare and itch under her skin. She rubbed her arms to stop it. Around her a breeze picked up and the campground, with its tracks in the mud and stains from the fires all melted away until there was nothing but autumn leaf litter and debris in its place. It looked like it hadn't been disturbed for years. — Amy Kuivalainen

Nodded to the birds, a dozen of them in a black line, wise-eyed and watching. The town-square ran red. Blood in the gutters, blood on the flagstones, blood in the fountain. The corpses posed as corpses do. Some comical, reaching — Mark Lawrence

Men are not to be told anything they might find too painful; the secret depths of human nature, the sordid physicalities, might overwhelm or damage them. For instance, men often faint at the sight of their own blood, to which they are not accustomed. For this reason you should never stand behind one in the line at the Red Cross donor clinic. — Margaret Atwood

Oh, no, she isn't quite as useless as that," Aimery said. As Winter stared, a thin crimson line drew itself across his throat, blood bubbling up from the wound. "The prettiest girl on all of Luna? She will make some member of this court a happy bride someday, I should think." "The prettiest girl, Aimery?" Levana's light tone almost concealed the snarl beneath. Aimery slipped into a bow. "Prettiest only, My Queen. But no mortal could compare with your perfection. — Marissa Meyer

Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share. — Mark Z. Danielewski

Her exact words were: Your brother is growing in his gift of the in-between, but he doesn't know which way to walk the line. The Light he found will lead him; its wings sit beneath the heart. But he must touch the violets and lilies to find surrender, to find his hidden blood. Damn riddles. — Rachel A. Marks

Kizzy wanted to be a woman who would dive off the prow of a sailboat into the sea, who would fall back in a tangle of sheets, laughing, and who could dance a tango, lazily stroke a leopard with her bare foot, freeze an enemy's blood with her eyes, make promises she couldn't possibly keep, and then shift the world to keep them. She wanted to write memoirs and autograph them at a tiny bookshop in Rome, with a line of admirers snaking down a pink-lit alley. She wanted to make love on a balcony, ruin someone, trade in esoteric knowledge, watch strangers as coolly as a cat. She wanted to be inscrutable, have a drink named after her, a love song written for her, and a handsome adventurer's small airplane, champagne-christened Kizzy, which would vanish one day in a windstorm in Arabia so that she would have to mount a rescue operation involving camels, and wear an indigo veil against the stinging sand, just like the nomads.
Kizzy wanted. — Laini Taylor

There should be a law, I thought. If you support a war, if you think it's worth the price, that's fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line. You have to head for the front and hook up with an infantry unit and help spill the blood. — Tim O'Brien

If we're lucky, writer and reader alike, we'll finish the last line or two of a short story and then just sit for a minute, quietly. Ideally, we'll ponder what we've just written or read; maybe our hearts or intellects will have been moved off the peg just a little from where they were before. Our body temperature will have gone up, or down, by a degree. Then, breathing evenly and steadily once more, we'll collect ourselves, writers and readers alike, get up, "created of warm blood and nerves" as a Chekhov character puts it, and go on to the next thing: Life. Always life. — Raymond Carver

Way back when the Sam Peckinpah film The Wild Bunch premiered, a woman journalist raised her hand at the press conference and asked the following: "Why in the world do you have to show so much blood all over the place?" She was pretty worked up about it. One of the actors, Ernest Borgnine, looked a bit perplexed and fielded the question. "Lady, did you ever see anyone shot by a gun without bleeding?" This film came out at the height of the Vietnam War.
I love that line. That's gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way. And bleeding. Shooting and bleeding. — Haruki Murakami

The silence seemed to gain weight between us, his face turned hard, and his lips became a thin, grim line. He pushed me away from him. "If I wanted to drain you, Cassandra," he said, his voice deep, "it wouldn't be your blood you should be concerned about. — L.J. Kentowski

She shoved me against the wall, pulling a knife from her belt and pressing it against my throat. "Who are you?" she hissed.
I winced as the blade drew a line of blood on my flesh. I considered my options. Queen of the Fallen, no. Enemy to your children, no. "I'm Claire, the Devil's assistant," I answered, deciding on the simplest choice. — H.D. Smith

The great name of the Dollys was Milton, and ... if you named a son Milton it was a decision that attempted to chart the life he'd live before he even stepped into it, for among Dollys the name carried expectations and history ... Jessops, Arthurs, Haslams and Miltons were born to walk only the beaten Dolly path to the shadowed place, live and die in keeping with those blood-line customs fiercest held.
Ree and Mom both had shouted and shouted and shouted against Harold becomeing a Milton, since Sonny was already a Jessop ... Ree'd a thousand times wished she'd fought longer for sonny, Shouted him into an Adam or Leotis or Eugene, shouted until he was named to expect choices. — Daniel Woodrell

The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered gleam of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again. — Madeline Miller

Outside the station of Santa Maria Novella Isabella has to stand aside while a line of prisoners are marched into the terminus by armed Fascist guards. They pass within touching distance of her, carrying bags and bundles. There are old people and some children too. They all seem swamped by their clothes, disembodied by them somehow. Then she catches the eye of Ezra, a young Jewish man who once worked in the arts material shop where she buys most of her pigments and brushes. He is almost at the back of the line. The veins are high and urgent on his hand. His trousers are held up with a dirty piece of string. His cobalt blue eyes hold hers for the barest beat of a moment but some essence of his being conveys itself to her and her blood quickens in sympathy for him. She has the feeling of looking into the eyes of a ghost. — Glenn Haybittle

When I was running Atari, violence against humanoid figures was not allowed. We'd let you shoot at a tank ... but we drew the line at shooting at people, with blood splattering everywhere. — Nolan Bushnell

It was too familiar to Cody. He placed his arms around his wife trying somehow to shelter her from the reality she was facing. There was another reason for his closeness; his desperation to show her he was not one of them, that the tribes of cruel men did not recognize him as one of their own, and to show his wife that his promise to create a safe place for her was a promise she need not fear would be broken. In the innermost part of him, from the secret child that lives within all men, was a scared cry, "Please don't think I'm bad too." From the other innermost part of him, the secret animal that prowls in some men was a raging wolf ready to kill. The battle line within the man had been drawn. The boundaries of faith rose up around the rage, warning the soul against righteous anger morphing to blood lust. — Lee Goff

If Christianity is true, this changes EVERYTHING. Christ's very last words to us in scripture were: "Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. 21:5) I hope you remember that most moving line in the most moving movie ever made, The Passion Of The Christ, when Christ turns to His mother on the way to Calvary, explaining the need for the Cross and the blood and the agony: "See, Mother, I make all things new." I hope you remember that line with your tear ducts, which connect to the heart, as well as with your ears, which connect to the brain. Christ changed every human being he ever met. In fact, He changed history, splitting it open like a coconut and inserting eternity into the split between B.C. and A.D. If anyone claims to have met Him without being changed, he has not met Him at all. When you touch Him, you touch lightning. — Peter Kreeft

If there is no blood on the line, it is not rugby league. — Russell Crowe

Blue Eyes pulled his sword back and tried another lunge. I pushed the weapon toward the ground, but again he flicked his wrist. A line of fire blazed on my right arm. Wonderful. Matching cuts.
He paused with his sword held in midair. My blood stained the tip.
I glanced past him. Didn't anyone hear the fight? Should I scream?
"Submit? You will have so many cuts on your arms and legs, you will faint from lack of blood."
"No. — Maria V. Snyder

Talking on a cell phone makes us four times as likely to have an accident - the same as a driver who has a blood alcohol content of .08 percent, which qualifies as intoxicated in most states. The risk is equal for drivers holding their phones to their ears and for those speaking through a hands-free device. In both cases, researchers suggest, the drivers generate mental images of the unseen person at the other end of the line, which conflicts with their capacity for spatial processing. "It's not that your hands aren't on the wheel," says David Strayer, the director of the Applied Cognition Laboratory at the University of Utah, "it's that your mind is not on the road. — Tony Schwartz

You've no idea the restraint I've created. A word, which in a past life, never held special meaning for me, flows now through the blood of my veins as if to remind me it was always there. Like you, always there. You said I was not strong. So I created strength to fight against these natural feelings which keep me tied to you. I drew a line in the sand so I would not step towards your door again. I have boundaries, strength and pride. What I do not have is you. And that is the only part I wanted. You've no idea the restraint I've created. You've no idea the bold wall I've built to keep me out of your compromising arms. — Coco J. Ginger

I think the democratic movement will be repressed for now, only to erupt again somewhere down the line.And more blood will be shed, just like it was when Americans fought and died to bring independence, democracy, and freedom to the United States. It's not something you can sit back and wait for someone to give to you voluntarily. — Nien Cheng

Anything that is as old as racism is in the blood line of the nation. It's not any superficial thing-that attitude is in the blood and we have to educate about it. — Nannie Helen Burroughs

I was born by myself but carry the spirit and blood of my father, mother and my ancestors. So I am really never alone. My identity is through that line. — Ziggy Marley

The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, she says, raising the silver chalice to our lips. Receiving from her is my favorite part of Sunday services. She always says her line with such joy, like it is the greatest thing in the world, which, of course, it is. — Lauren F. Winner

What kind of understanding?" he murmured almost absently, his mind clearly on other, more provocative things.
The trace of amusement in his voice irritated her, as if he were merely humoring her. Savannah pushed at the solid wall of his chest to put a few inches between them. His large frame didn't budge, and she was locked in by his arm. She pushed at him again. "Forget it."
He bent his head to taste the vulnerable line of her neck, to feel her pulse in the warm, moist cavern of his mouth. His blood surged and pounded. Little jackhammers began to beat at his skull. "I am listening to every word you say, ma petite," he murmured, lost in her softness, in the scent of her. He wanted her with every fiber of his being, every cell in his body. "I could repeat each word verbatim, if you desire. — Christine Feehan

In every family there is a murderer, a thief and a crazy person. And if you have a little Blue blood in the line, you can be sure there are more than one of each. — Clark Jeffries

I hear talk of that slippery slope, and my heart catches for a beat. But there is the musky truth I'm standing in that I can't deny, and it tastes of so much holy. That old way, the narrow line, I see now that was a slippery, saccharine surface where my soul could gain no purchase. For the first time, my feet feel sure beneath me, and that sense is twining its way up from my ankles, racing toward my knees, my thighs, my secret places, my heart. It's in my blood now, and I can't deny it. I can't deny it.

I open my eyes, because I could see even through my clutched-closed lids that the darkness is light, that the blindness has given way to searing vision.

I can't deny it. — Beth Morey

He it is, if any man today possesses the gift, who knows where to dissolve the human figure, who has the courage to sacrifice an harmonious line in order to detect rhythm and murmur of the blood, who takes light that has been refracted inside him and lets it flood the keyboard of color. Behind the minutiae, the chaos, the mockery of life, he detects the invisible pattern; he announces his discoveries in the metaphysical pigment of space. No searching formulae, no crucifixion of ideas, no compulsion other than to create. Even as the world goes to smash there is one man who remains at the core, who becomes more solidly fixed and anchored, more centrifugal as the process of dissolution quickens. — Henry Miller

Why the desire for death.
A clean paper or pure white wall.
One false line, a scratch, a mistake.
Unerasable. So obscureby
adding million other tracings,
blend it, cover over.
But the original scratch remains,
written in gold blood, shining.
Desire for a Perfect Life. — Jim Morrison

There was a whole, sprawling world underneath us, filled with ugly, vicious, beautiful people. The line between the two places was thin, hardly a separation, and both ran on pain and blood and fear and death and joy and music.
But for now, the sunset was enough. — Brenna Yovanoff

I don't care what anyone says. You have to wake up and say to yourself, 'I accept that I have diabetes, and I'm not going to let it run my entire life.' It's a fine line, a Catch-22, a balancing act. I work to enjoy my life like a regular human being and at the same time keep my blood sugar levels as decent as possible. — Bret Michaels

When someone loves a remarkable woman..." Isaac sat down on her right side and caressed the firm line of her biceps with his left hand. It stirred his blood. "...her feats should captivate him, just as her eyes do." "Do — Shira Glassman

A short poem from my new book, The Lost Journal of my Second Trip to Pergatory,
Thorny Crowns
Of course the gold one was for special occasions, weddings, etc,
silver for family reunions, office-casual type affairs.
Bronze was a everyday choice; during yard work its burnished surface shone in sunlight.
There were various colors and holiday appropriate ones.
I could never find the hatboxes they were stored in.
But the wooden one was reserved for the long suffering caused by family.
Stevie's funeral, my hospital trips and sister's rebellion rated real wood.
One tip filed extra sharp produced a fine and dramatic line of blood droplets on her brow. — Michelle Hartman

I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting. — Laurie Halse Anderson

The moments that define lives aren't always obvious. They don't scream LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there's no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren't always protracted, heavy with meaning. Between one sip and the next, Victor made the biggest mistake of his life, and it was made of nothing more than one line. Three small words.
I'll go first. — Victoria Schwab

That's what you like in a girl: cute and sad, with enough disorders that you could count them to fall asleep. The kind you can show off at parties as the latest broken thing you fixed. Where will you hang your awards for loving someone who can't walk in a straight line without being supported? Is there room next to your collection of glasses you shattered by holding them too tightly? The blood on your hands does not make you a martyr. Do not curse when your hammers do nothing but scar her. Do not use your words to remind her that everybody else would have left by now. If she could speak, she would tell you: you think it's beautiful to love somebody as light as me but you don't know how heavy I had to be to become this empty. — Lora Mathis

British prime minister William Gladstone summed up the West's opinion of "the Turk": Let me endeavor very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline, what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mahometanism simply, but of Mahometanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mahometans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and, as far as their dominion reached, civilisation disappeared from view. — Eric Bogosian

Grass: I've invested heavily in blood futures. I have a direct line to the trading floor for polyester blood. There's a heaving mass of men crying out their bids. The blood arrives at the warehouse in the form of double-knit suits. It's the only kind of suit I wear. When I collapse in the street, paramedics rush me to the hospital, liquefy the suit and inject it in my veins. — Don DeLillo

The word soul has lost its meaning and even its plausibility ... Faith, hope and love can no longer be seen simply as virtues or graces; they are processes in flesh and blood ... (the clergyman) will find that whether he wants it or not, he is also a front-line mental health worker or he will be so regarded by the specialists in mental health. It is on the pastoral role and the tasks of shepherding that the psychological disciples have the greatest impact in theological work. — Paul Pruyser

When you're dealing with an in-law violation, I think the first line of defense is for the blood relation to have a serious talk. — Emily Yoffe

The problem is this: nature has assembled all these species on this planet. The human species is no more important than any other species on this planet. For some reason, man accorded himself a superior place in this scheme of things. He thinks that he is created for some grander purpose than, if I could give a crude example, the mosquito that is sucking his blood. What is responsible for this is the value system that we have created. And the value system has come out of the religious thinking of man. Man has created religion because it gives him a cover. This demand to fulfill himself, to seek something out there was made imperative because of this self-consciousness in you which occurred somewhere along the line of the evolutionary process. Man separated himself from the totality of nature. — U.G. Krishnamurti

If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do. — Andy Weir

Stephen Herondale would have killed me if he'd ever met me. I would not have been safe living among people like you, or like him. I am the wife and mother of warriors who fought and died and never dishonored themselves as you have. I have worn gear, wielded blades, and slain demons, and all I wished was to overcome evil so that I could live and be happy with those I loved. I'd hoped I had made this a better, safer world for my children. Because of Valentine's Circle, the Herondale line, the line that was my son's children's children, is finished. That happened through you and your Circle and your husband. Stephen Herondale died with hate in his heart and the blood of my people on his hands. I can imagine no more horrible way for mine and Will's line to end. I will have to carry for the rest of my life the wound of what Valentine's Circle has done to me, and I will live forever. — Cassandra Clare

Her heart sprang up into her throat.
Watching that shadow play was like paying a quarter for a peep show. Only she got it for free.
He thinks I'm pretty.
Butterflies did a dance around her heart before she could swat them away.
Behind the shade. his shadow unbuttoned those soft, worn, butt-hugging jeans and slid them down his lean hips. Charli sucked in a big gulp of air, then headed back to the veranda and her glass of wine.
With all the estrogen doing a conga line through her blood, she needed a drink.
Well, she really needed something else.
But she'd settle for a drink. — Candis Terry

He does not always remain bent over the
pages; he often leans back and closes
his eyes over a line he has been reading
again, and its meaning spreads through
his blood. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Don't be afraid of me, Sahara." Bending his head, he spoke with his lips against hers, the contact igniting a thousand tiny lightning strikes in her blood. "I'd line the streets with bodies before I'd ever hurt you. — Nalini Singh

I'm not sure how to order."
"Easy," Josh says. "Stand in line. Tell them what you want. Accept delicious goodies. And then give them your meal card and two pints of blood."
"I heard they raised it to three pints this year," Rashmi says.
"Bone marrow," Beautiful Hallway Boy says. "Or your left earlobe. — Stephanie Perkins

I dream of a small room and a man with one eye. Blood seeps like scarlet tears from his empty socket. I turn away and the room becomes a hallway that becomes a stairway that becomes a roof. The wind tugs at my body; the sky tries to wrap me in stars. Below me, a gazebo glows with red light. A line of black cars crawls like cockroaches through the streets.
An air conditioner exhaust fan chitters angrily near the roof's edge, one of its blades bent just enough to scrape against the side of the casing. For a second I let the wind push me close enough to the fan's razor- sharp blades that a lock of my hair gets snipped and sent out into the night. As it twists and flutters toward the gazebo, I think about just letting go, letting the breeze carry my body into the whirling blades, the wind scattering pieces of me throughout the city. Blood and flesh seeping into the cracked pavement. Flowers blooming wherever I land. — Paula Stokes

A greyish substance that might be blood. Remembering the spray I caught earlier, I wipe a hand across my face and it comes away wet and sticky with the same grey liquid. "I'd kill for a shower," I mutter, chuckling darkly at the sick joke. Juni cuts a long, jagged line through the creature's flesh, — Darren Shan

I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep? I draw little windowcracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting. It looks like I arm-wrestled a rosebush. — Laurie Halse Anderson

The Targaryens wed brothers and sisters for three hundred years to keep the blood line pure. — George R R Martin

I think this cut might need stiches," Scarlett said, yet as her cloth wiped away the blood it revealed a smooth line of unmarked, unbroken flesh. "Wait, I don't see a wound."
"There's not one. But that feels really good." Julian moaned and arched his back.
"You scoundrel! — Stephanie Garber

The law is an accumulation of tireless attempts to block a man's desire to change life into an instant of poetry. Certainly it would not be right to let everybody exchange his life for a line of poetry written with a splash of blood. But the mass of men, lacking valor, pass away their lives without ever feeling the least touch of such a desire. — Yukio Mishima

Why let your fury lay deep inside you, sullenly boiling your blood into silent steam and griding your bones to dust? I it not better to thrust it out with great velocity from every pore, with your every action? Let your actions speak your legend. The physical is the manifestation of the spirit. Let your spirit be teeming with fury. Let your strength be unusual and controlled. The average is the borderline that keeps mere men in their place. Those who step over the line are heroes by the very act. Go. — Henry Rollins

From the days of the Founding Fathers, right to this (2008) election, how and where America fights to defend its freedom, has been the ultimate question in its politics. The one that triggers rage and sorrow; the one that asks is the price of blood too dear? Or, if it is to stay true to its convictions, does America have no coice but to put its lives on the line? — Simon Schama

And yet. When I read the Dawn on line and then looked around me to the pristine surroundings of campus life, I knew that every other city in the world only showed me its surface, but when I looked at Karachi I saw the blood running through and out of its veins; I knew that I understood the unspoken as much as the articulated among its inhabitants; I knew that there were so many reasons to fail to love it, to cease to love it, to be unable to love it, that it made love a fierce and unfathomable thing; I knew I couldn't think of Karachi and find any easy answers, and I didn't know how to decide if that was reason to go back or reason to stay away. — Kamila Shamsie

The life of each and every one of us has been written. The crucifix is my autobiography. The blood is the ink. The nails the pen. The skin the parchment. On every line of that body I can trace my life. In the crown of thorns I can read my pride. In the hands that are dug with nails, I can read avarice and greed. In the flesh hanging from him like purple rags, I can read my lust. In feet that are fettered, I can find the times that I ran away and would not let him follow. Any sin that you can think of is written there. — Fulton J. Sheen

I jerked my phone out of my pocket and took a sharp left to follow the bold green line. I didn't fail to notice my walking icon had been replaced with a bicycle. Stupid Google. Doesn't have a "Succubus on Steroids" setting.

J.M. Friedman. Succubus in Seattle (Kindle Locations 1198-1199). — J.R. Thorn

Then I place the blade next to the skine on my palm.
A tingle arced across my scalp. The flood tipped up at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next. What happened next was thet a perfect, straight line of blood bloomed from under the blade.The line grow into a long, Fat bubbel, A lush crimson bubbel that got bigger and bigger. I watch from above, waiting to see how big it would get before it burst. when it did, I felt awesome. Satisfied, finally. Then exhausted. — Patricia McCormick

The caterpillars are coming. They're coming. As they passed a blunt rolled with marijuana shake around the bonfire, filled plastic cups with beer from a keg in the back of John Anderson's Bronco, snuck cigarettes at the red doors that led to the make-out woods behind school. As they waited on line at the cafeteria for pizza and Tater Tots, warmed up during choral practice, and changed for gym in the locker room. Until Maddie felt something titanic rushing toward the island, gathering steam like a nor'easter barreling toward shore, and the waiting filled with a tingling urgency she knew they all felt. She felt it. Car engines revved harder, highs soared higher, buzzes and crushes burned brighter. "Look." She lifted her palm as the insect inched across. The two lines of blue and red dots on its back glimmered like spots of blood rising after a pinprick. "They're here. — Julia Fierro

Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine, No blood of living insect stain my line; Let me, less cruel, cast the feather'd hook, With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, Silent along the mazy margin stray, And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey. — John Gay

What is he?"
"I can't puzzle it out. He doesn't have horns, pointed ears - or apparently a need to eat. He does have small fangs, but he also sports a tan line."
"You checked? Natalya, you durrrty bitch."
"Hey, I had to determine if he was a blood sucker or not. Now I don't know what to think. — Kresley Cole

The line from Pulp Fiction - the one Samuel L. Jackson shouts at John Travolta as they're trying to wash blood off their hands - pops into my head: 'I used the same soap you did and when I dried my hands, the towel didn't look like no fuckin' maxi-pad!' I almost - almost - share this most quotable of cinematic quotes with him, when I remember it contains The Word. You know: 'maxi-pad. — Elle Lothlorien

There was another, gorier parturition, when two nations incarnated out of one. A foreigner drew a magic line on a map and called it the new border; it became a river of blood upon the earth. And the orchards, fields, factories, businesses, all on the wrong side of that line, vanished with a wave of the pale conjuror's wand. — Rohinton Mistry

A quiet man I was, and not one to provoke a quarrel, but if set upon I would fight back. I do not say this in boasting, for it was as much a part of me as the beating of my heart. It was bred in the blood-line of those from whom I come, and I could not be other than I am. — Louis L'Amour

She reached forward and lifted her uncle up into her arms. He was still too weak to resist, and she comforted him with a stroke of her fingers through his greying hair, softly kissing his lips, tasting the blood with a shiver of anticipation, and moving her kisses to his cheek, the line of his jaw, the crook of his neck where his pulse thundered to push the shadowy blood to its destinations.
"Know that, when I do this, I'm doing it, to ease your suffering," she whispered, lips pressed to his skin, her fangs pressing behind them hungrily. — Carmen Dominique Taxer

[I]t seemed to me now that a Catholic church was the right companion for all these horrors. Didn't Catholicism deal with blood and resurrected flesh on a daily basis? Wasn't it expert in superstition? I somehow doubted that the hospitable plain Protestant chapels that dotted the university could be much help; they didn't look qualified to wrestle with the undead. I felt sure those big square Puritan churches on the town green would be helpless in the face of a European vampire. A little witch burning was more in their line
something limited to the neighbors. — Elizabeth Kostova

I actually like older horror movies more than newer ones because when I'm watching newer ones, like 'Chucky' or 'Saw' or whatever, I'm like, 'Come on, really, this isn't even good, all it is is blood and knives.' I like when it has a story line, you know? When it's actually a movie. — Emily Alyn Lind

I believe Triumvirate Holdings wants to control all the ancient Oracles. And I Believe the most ancient Oracle of all, the Grove of Dodona, is right here at Camp Half-Blood"

I WAS A DREAMATIC GOD.

I thought my last statement was a great line, I expected gasps, perhaps some organ music in the background. Maybe the lights would go out just before I could say more. Moments later I would be found dead with a knife in my back. That would be exciting!

Wait. I'm a mortal. Murder would kill me. Never mind — Rick Riordan

One night a guy hit his head on a welding gun. He went to his knees. He was bleeding like a pig, blood was oozing out. So I stopped the line for a second and ran over to help him. The foreman turned the line on again, he almost stepped on the guy. That's the first thing they always do. They didn't even call an ambulance. The guy walked to the medic department
that's about half a mile
he had about five stitches put in his head. The foreman didn't say anything. He just turned the line on. You're nothing to any of them. — Studs Terkel

Materialism has defeated feminism as well. In a sign of the times, Gloria Steinem was on the picket line when the first American DeBeers store opened on Fifth Avenue in June 2005, protesting the evictions of Bushmen in Botswana to make room for diamond miners and the charges that the company dealt in "blood diamonds" used to finance civil wars in Africa.
Her presence meant nothing to young Hollywood beauties who are pleased to shill for the diamond industry in magazine layouts and personal appearances.
As Steinem stood outside, Lindsay Lohan was inside the party, gushing over the possibility that she could get to wear one of the big rocks.
Asked by reporters about the Bushmen controversy, she shrugged it off: "I don't get involved in any drama. — Maureen Dowd

The Chorus Line:
A Rope-Jumping Rhyme

we are the maids
the ones you killed
the ones you failed

we danced in air
our bare feet twitched
it was not fair

with every goddess, queen, and bitch
from there to here
you scratched your itch

we did much less
than what you did
you judged us bad

you had the spear
you had the word
at your command

we scrubbed the blood
of our dead
paramours from floors, from chairs

from stairs, from doors,
we knelt in water
while you stared

at our bare feet
it was not fair
you licked our fear

it gave you pleasure
you raised your hand
you watched us fall

we danced on air
the ones you failed
the ones you killed — Margaret Atwood

Brick walls towered over her. Decrepit staircases crowded about her. Nothing had changed. The line there, the lessons there, the rape there. Shouldn't the place be crimson with blood and black with shame? — Sarah Sundin

Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood. — Yukio Mishima

Where roads are made I lose my way.
In the wide water, in the blue sky there is no line of a track.
The pathway is hidden by the birds' wings, by the star-fires, by the flowers of the wayfaring seasons.
And I ask my heart if its blood carries the wisdom of the unseen way. — Rabindranath Tagore

For this wire is as a part of our body, as a vein torn from us, glowing with our blood. Are we proud of this thread of metal, or of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these two? — Ayn Rand

A dinner! How horrible! I am to be made the pretext for killing all those wretched animals and birds, and fish! Thank you for nothing. Now if it were to be a fast instead of a feast; say a solemn three days' abstention from corpses in my honour, I could at least pretend to believe that it was disinterested. Blood sacrifices are not in my line — George Bernard Shaw

I will go," he said. "I will go to Troy."
The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again.
He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth.
"Will you come with me?" he asked.
The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. "Yes," I whipsered. "Yes."
Relief broke in his face, and he reached for me. I let him hold me, let him press us length to length so close that nothing might fit between us.
Tears came, and fell. Above us, the constellations spun and the moon paced her weary course. We lay stricken and sleepless as the hours passed. — Madeline Miller

He felt his hunger no longer as a pain but as a tide. He felt it rising in himself through time and darkness, rising through the centuries, and he knew that it rose in a line of men whose lives were chosen to sustain it, who would wander in the world, strangers from that violent country where the silence is never broken except to shout the truth. He felt it building from the blood of Abel to his own, rising and spreading in the night, a red-gold tree of fire ascended as if it would consume the darkness in one tremendous burst of flame. The boy's breath went out to meet it. He knew that this was the fire that had encircled Daniel, that had raised Elijah from the earth, that had spoken to Moses and would in the instant speak to him. He threw himself to the ground and with his face against the dirt of the grave, he heard the command. GO WARN THE CHILDREN OF GOD OF THE TERRIBLE SPEED OF MERCY. The words were as silent as seed opening one at a time in his blood. — Flannery O'Connor

I'm afraid you may have to put up with some more," I said, looking at my test tube. A thin line of precipitate had formed between the antiserum and the sample from the crime scene. "It looks like it's human blood." Deborah — Jeff Lindsay

GIRL, write YOUR book dammit.
Who cares what people think?
If writers in the past cared what other people thought we'd still be glossing over 'inappropriate' kissing scenes.
Break the fucking rules.
Push yourself to the edge.
Show the world what YOU can do.
This is YOUR book. YOUR blood and guts.
AND, don't you EVER, EVER, write one single line for SOMEONE ELSE. — Madeline Sheehan

When the governing representatives of the people legalize the shedding of innocent blood (as a for-profit business, nonetheless) then they have placed themselves, and those they represent, in the direct line of God's judgment. — Tony Evans

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line - the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

A story is alive, as you and I are. It is rounded by muscle and sinew. Rushed with blood. Layered with skin, both rough and smooth. At its core lies soft marrow of hard, white bone. A story beats with the heart of every person who has ever strained ears to listen. On the breath of the storyteller, it soars. Until its images and deeds become so real you can see them in the air, shimmering like oases on the horizon line. A story can fly like a bee, so straight and swift you catch only the hum of its passing. Or move so slowly it seems motionless, curled in upon itself like a snake in the sun. It can vanish like smoke before the wind. Linger like perfume in the nose. Change with every telling, yet always remain the same. — Cameron Dokey

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind," he said, "That from the nunnery, Of they chaste breast and quiet mind."
I looked up at him, and said the next line, "To war and arms I fly."
"True, a new mistress now I chase," he said.
"The first foe in the field," I said, and let him draw me closer.
"And with a stronger faith embrace," he said.
"A sword, a horse, a shield." And the last word was whispered against his chest, still looking up into those eyes, searching his face.
"Yet this inconstancy is such, As thou too shalt adore," he whispered against my hair.
I finished the poem with my face pressed against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart, that truly beat with my blood. "I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more. — Laurell K. Hamilton

At this juncture it is important to say something about Exodus 12:7. This verse implies that we are dealing with a ritual that did not involve atoning for sin, but rather was a rite of protection for God's people, a different though not unrelated matter. It involved a blood ritual to avoid God's last blow against the firstborn. Thus Passover and atonement were not originally associated, though apparently by Jesus' day there were some such associations. Notice that nothing at all is said or suggested here about Israel's sin, or about forgiveness. This ceremony is more like an insurance policy. Yes, the blood is to avert divine wrath, but it is not wrath against Israel's particular sins. In this case they simply happened to be too close to the danger zone, or in the line of fire. We must assume that this blood ritual arose before there even was a fully formed priesthood, for it is highly unusual to have such a ritual without any mention of involvement of priests. — Ben Witherington III

Most of this I've told before, or at least hinted at, but what I have never told is the full truth. How I cracked. How at work one morning, standing on the pig line, I felt something break open in my chest. I don't know what it was. I'll never know. But it was real, I know that much, it was a physical rapture
a cracking-leaking-popping feeling. I remember dropping my water gun. Quickly, almost without thought, I took off my apron and walked out of the plant and drove home. It was midmorning, I remember, and the house was empty. Down in my chest there was still that leaking sensation, something very warm and precious spilling out, and I was covered with blood and hog-stink, and for a long while I just concentrated on holding myself together. — Tim O'Brien

I'm fine," Nick snarled, and shut his eyes. "Mae, he is not fine!" Jamie almost yelled, and Mae scrambled to her feet.
"Oh God," she said. "Alan's down. Alan's down.
I can't see him. I think he could be
"
"What?" Nick rasped.
Mae looked down and saw Nick struggle up on one knee. He glared up at her and then got painfully to his feet, a knife in either hand. There was blood running down his arm, his shoulder was a mess, and his mouth was set in a grim, determined line. "Where's Alan?"
"Oh, Alan's fine," Mae said, nodding to where Alan was throwing himself at the magicians again. Sin was beside him now, and the rest of the Goblin Market was behind her. "I was lying so you'd get up. Sorry about that."
Nick laughed, spun, and stabbed something. "Don't be sorry. I've just decided that lying's kind of sexy. — Sarah Rees Brennan

What 'True Blood' does really well is that it balances on the line between good and evil - you blur the distinction between the two. — Robert Kazinsky

His brow is seamed with line and scar;
His cheek is red and dark as wine;
The fires as of a Northern star
Beneath his cap of sable shine.
His right hand, bared of leathern glove,
Hangs open like an iron gin,
You stoop to see his pulses move,
To hear the blood sweep out and in.
He looks some king, so solitary
In earnest thought he seems to stand,
As if across a lonely sea
He gazed impatient of the land.
Out of the noisy centuries
The foolish and the fearful fade;
Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes,
Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed. — Walter De La Mare

It's a thin line between what we're calling acceptable and not acceptable. As a leader, you're supposed to know when not to cross it. But how do you know? Does the army teach us how to control our emotions? Does the army teach us how to deal with a friend bleeding out in front of you? No. — David Finkel

Your pantry is your first line of defense against food-borne illness and things like high blood pressure and cholesterol. — Joe Bastianich

He made a small sigh, as he swallowed the first blood, then his mouth closed over my earlobe, mouth working at the wound, tongue coaxing blood from the wound. He pressed his body the length of mine, one hand cupping my turned head, the other playing down the line of my body. Maybe it was just blood, but I never stroked my steak while eating it. — Laurell K. Hamilton

The gospel has but a forced alliance with war. Its doctrine of human brotherhood would ring strangely between the opposed ranks. The bellowing speech of cartoon and the baptism of blood mock its liturgies and sacraments. Its gentle beatitudes would hardly serve as mottoes for defiant banners, nor its list of graces as names for ships-of-the-line. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Only in retrospect do I appreciate that this "doing your bit" is a deadly misapprehension of the nature of familial ties. Better understanding them now, I find blood relationships rather frightening. What is wonderful about kinship is also what is horrible about it: there is no line in the sand, no natural limit to what these people can reasonably expect of you. — Lionel Shriver

My watch buzzed and told me I had ten minutes left to live. I turned my wrist to glance at it. Yep. This sucks.

J.M. Friedman. Succubus in Seattle (Kindle Locations 28-29). — J.R. Thorn

There is a difference between killing while in the throes of Hunger or Blood Frenzy, and giving in to the monster. Once you fall, once you willingly cross that line, it changes you. Forever. — Julie Kagawa

There should be a law, I though. If you support a war, if you think it's worth the price, that's fine, but you he to put your own precious fluids on the line. You have to head for the front and hook up with an infantry unit and help spill the blood. And you have to bring along your wife, or your kids, or your lover. A law, I thought. — Tim O'Brien