Broken Plate Quotes & Sayings

The large strings hummed like rain, The small strings whispered like a secret, Hummed, whispered - and then were intermingled Like a pouring of large and small pearls into a plate of jade. We heard an oriole, liquid, hidden among flowers. We heard a brook bitterly sob along a bank of sand ... By the checking of its cold touch, the very string seemed broken As though it could not pass; and the notes, dying away Into a depth of sorrow and concealment of lament, Told even more in silence than they had told in sound ... A silver vase abruptly broke with a gush of water, And out leapt armored horses and weapons that clashed and smote - And before she laid her pick down, she ended with one stroke, And all four strings made one sound, as of rending silk. — Eiji Yoshikawa

The gaps are part of the set, too," she'd said. "You can't replace them. I know how each piece was broken or lost. I broke a plate myself when I was nine. Now I'm an immortal part of the pattern. I'll take my gaps, thank you. — Josiah Bancroft

She sat down about two yards away from him, near a large wandering jew. "I first heard about it at the faculty wives' tea." "Everything is discussed there. I'm aware of that." "Of course I would be the last to know. Wives always are." "Come, come, Clara, my patience and my time are running out." Without warning he lifted up one of her hand-painted china cake plates and threw it against the wall. The outrage snapped the tension in the room, and she could weep now with some mild comfort, but without, he could see, any shock or concern for the priceless plate. (Aunt Clayburn) "You admit then you have a lover," she said, examining the broken pieces of china, from her chair. "I don't admit any such god damned thing," he scoffed. "The ladies were certainly sold on the truth of it." "I wish I had the nerve to have a lover. I might have been a better writer. — James Purdy

I don't keep things safe. I used to. Perhaps. I can't keep all the plates spinning. I drop some." ... "Well, that is always the risk, if you're a plate, isn't it? If you want to be spun, then you must accept the possibility of being broken. — Paul Cornell

There are a lot of myths about my injuries. They say I have broken every bone in my body. Not true. But I have broken 35 bones. I had surgery 14 times to pin and plate. I shattered my pelvis. I forget all of the things that have broke. — Evel Knievel

It's so much better to have sex with someone who's always available, knows what you want and who loves you more deeply than anyone else ever can. Yourself. — Ian McDonald

I think if you're good at art, you'll be good at most types of art. — Grimes

The universe is a gathering of nows that I spread before my feet like a landscape. — Janet Turpin Myers

My aunt used to tell me that trust was like a plate. Once it was broken, it didn't matter how much glue you used to put it back together; it would never be the same. So here I am holding onto the broken fragments of our love - our marriage - trying not to cut myself with them. Some — Mia Asher

No one ever wants to hear how stressed out anyone else is, because most of the time everyone is stressed out. — Mindy Kaling

In a gesture of astonishing chutzpah, the North Koreans were submitting a bill of $3,241 for his enforced stay at the Yanggakdo Hotel. They'd even broken the room rate down, with six days at the "tourist season" rate of $75/day, and 36 days at the "ordinary season" rate of $60/day. Plus $591 for meals, $14 for dessert, and $23 for the phone call to Lee. And, as a final insult, there was a $3 fee for "a lost plate." Merrill asked the State Department whether paying might help the other Americans detained in North Korea, and was told no. The bill remains unpaid. — Mike Chinoy

The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment. And perhaps even more than that, it's having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels. — Paul Bowles

Sybil entered, with a plate.
"You're not eating enough, Sam," she announced. "And the canteen here is a disgrace. It's all grease and garbage!"
"That's what the men like, I'm afraid," said Vimes guiltily.
"I've cleaned out the tar in the tea urn, at least," Sybil went on, with satisfaction.
"You cleaned out the tar urn?" said Vimes in a hollow voice. It was like being told that someone had wiped the patina off a fine old work of art.
"Yes, it was like tar in there. There really wasn't much proper food in the store, but I managed to make you a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich."
"Thank you, dear." Vimes cautiously lifted a corner of the bread with his broken pencil. There seemed to be too much lettuce, which is to say, there was some lettuce. — Terry Pratchett

So with Easter. It was fun, as a child, to bound down the stairs to find seasonal sweet-treats under each plate, but again, with the passing of time, and the shadow of death over our broken family circle, I've seen Easter as highest necessity. If hope is to flourish, it had better be true. — Gerhard E Frost

...you have to just go on. It's sort of like a bird flying into a plate glass window. And then you just sort of pick yourself up, shake yourself off, and check for anything broken, and go back to work. — Sally Mann

Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question. — Ira Glass

The people who knew me and knew my work and trusted me, they knew then as they do now that I've never fabricated or plagiarized a story. People who know me know I didn't do this. — Jack Kelley

Every day in life we're told who this is and who that is. But when we sit we're all the same when we remove our hat. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

I've broken probably every major bone in my body. I currently have, in my body, fifteen pins and a plate. I've broken my femur, both wrists, both ankles - my left ankle twice. My tibia. Tore my rotator cuff. — Donald Trump Jr.

When I was working on my career, I was very aware of what I had done, what I wanted to do next. I'm having a good time just reading things that might be interesting to do. — Kurt Russell

Transfer the point of concentration to some object outside of yourself - another person, a puzzle, a broken plate that you are gluing. — Sanford Meisner

The dessert course halts the conversation entirely. Globes of thinly blown sugar sit on each plate and must be broken open in order to access the clouds of cream within.
After the cacophony of shattering sugar, it does not take long for the diners to realize that, though the globes appeared identical, each of them has been presented with an entirely unique flavor.
There is much sharing of spoons. And while some are easily guessed as ginger with peach or curried coconut, others remain delicious mysteries.
Celia's is clearly honey, but with a blend of spices beneath the sweetness that no one is able to place. — Erin Morgenstern

Identity confusion... is as if somebody lost their mental road map and has no appreciation of who they are or what is going on in their life. They may know they know but become blustered or baffled as to why they don't. The information is inaccessible and likely would remind a person about things that have gone on in their life that are simply unacceptable and unknowable, in a given moment, because of the emotional gravity involved. — Richard A Chefetz

Note from the authors: Yes, we have lost our minds. Be forewarned: You will lose yours too. — Mauerer, Wolfgang

Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul. — Simone Weil

Most of us believe in a higher power, whatever name we use to describe it. I refer to this higher power as the universe. Others call it God. I was raised to believe in God and I still do, but to me all religions are like a great big plate that's been broken into many pieces. All the pieces are different, but they're all still part of the same plate. The words we use to describe our beliefs aren't as important as the beliefs themselves. — Laura Lynne Jackson

They stood on the far shore of a river and called to him. Tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste. Trekking the dried floor of a mineral sea where it lay cracked and broken like a fallen plate. Paths of feral fire in the coagulate sands. The figures faded in the distance. He woke and lay in the dark. — Cormac McCarthy

Friar Hugo, old friend, brace yourself. I am the bearer of tragic news!"
Alarm spread across Hugo's pudgy features. "Tell me, Jess. What dreadful thing has happened?"
Jess spoke haltingly in a broken voice. "I fear that Cluny has tore up one of your oldest and most venerable dishrags. Alas, Redwall will never see it wipe another plate. — Brian Jacques

We have to discard the past / and, as one builds / floor by floor, window by window, / and the building rises, / so do we keep shedding - first, broken tiles, / then proud doors ... and each new day / gleams / like an empty / plate. — Pablo Neruda

first seek ye the kingdom of pure practical intelligence

shreds of posters and headlines
shards of gramophone records feathers

lights shining arcs
the well-lit borders

when the rush-hour comes
and the hour of the pile-up
and the sounds of breaking steel-plate and people
are heard in the dark

when the journey is broken, no one is on the right road — Pentti Saarikoski

Is this true? Those who had world' enough, that is, those engaged in a demanding daily vocation, were short of time while those without regular obligations had more than sufficient time, but no world? — Carolyn G. Heilbrun

But no one will weep for me or for them. They have been buried, nameless, beneath five centuries of time.
I am a vampire.
My name is Vittorio, and I write this now in the tallest tower of the ruined mountaintop castle in which I was born, in the northernmost part of Tuscany, that most beautiful of lands in the very center of Italy. — Anne Rice