Quotes & Sayings About Can Of Worms

I can't use one man's hand to scratch another man's itch. Well, I could, but that would involve both of them being in the same bed with me, and that's a whole different can of worms. — K. Bromberg

I know that the parts of Anna's body they could recover are six feet below, as sheltered as can be from the worms and the ruin, resting on satin and in an utter darkness that even I can't contemplate. But I know that's not her. Whatever makes us flew from her with only one witness to the moment, someone who should have never known her at all. — Mindy McGinnis

I opened up every can of worms I could. I got to the place where I would peel back one layer, and then another layer, and the stuff that would come up underneath was so inspiring, it made me want to write about it. — Damien Rice

In Washington, as we learned from the White House transcripts, a president may speak of kicking butts, call a problem a can of worms, decide not to be in the position of basically hunkering down, anticipate something hitting the fan, propose to tough it through, sight minefields down the road, see somebody playing hard ball, claim political savvy, and wonder what stroke some of his associates have with others. — Edwin Newman

There are lots of different strategies that an animal can use to survive. What a worm does is try to convert food into worms as soon as possible. In three days a single worm produces 300 progeny. So why put your resources into developing if you can make a brand-new worm in no time at all? — Cynthia Kenyon

What Kinds of Circumstances Called for Courage in Paton's Life? He had courage to overcome the criticism he received from respected elders for going to the New Hebrides. A Mr. Dickson exploded, "The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!" The memory of Williams and Harris on Erromanga was only 19 years old. But to this Paton responded: Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer (56). — Anonymous

You will feel the burning of Hell from inside your skin, itching and painful like writhing worms burrowing into your bones. You cannot escape it, you cannot beg your way out. A day here is a hundred there. Your dirty soul will feed Lucifer and the greater demons around him for eternity. You can't be anything more than a slave. — Ashlan Thomas

There are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science. There are all sorts of questions like that that which at the periphery of scientic inquiry but which wiggle in the mind like worms: the question "what am I, what is this word 'I'"? Does it refer to anything? If you try to capture the "I", you don't capture it, you capture the object, in which case it's a nothing, but it's a nothing on which everything depends. But this nothing on which everything depends thinks of itself as free. This is a philosophical question that worries everyone, but you can't formulate it. — Roger Scruton

Christianity is stigmatized by the myriad of child abuse scandals; Islam is hijacked by fanatics and given a bad name. Buddhism is all about the good teaching of peace, respect and nonviolence, and Hinduism is all about finding faith, respect and belief in everything as they strongly believe that God is omnipresent and lives in everything, and other religions have their own faith, belief and way of reaching the almighty one. No religion is good or bad; it is the man who makes it bad. Paganism is a path to nowhere; but the subject of religion is a can of worms that is better left uncorked. Agnosticism might get their chance, and for the sake of equality and fairness, let the monotheist speak out.'"

My No.7 book is coming....! — Tim I. Gurung

I can open up any can of worms and get people upset. — Andy Kindler

You're not the only piece of patchwork birds can pull worms from. — Buddy Wakefield

As companies move to web-based computing they get a lot more servers, which are difficult to manage and control. All kinds of problems can arise - security, quality and worms. — Ben Horowitz

Well, there are some things that I just can't get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they're of my own creation, as well - and they're just as annoying. It's not only other people's ear worms that bug me, it's my own, as well. — Brian Eno

As soon as you ascend to heaven in spirit, by being more spiritual and honest with yourself, you will notice that hell comes to you at the exact same time, and earth will literally feel like hell. Everyone that can't see it went on the opposite direction, from crazy to crazier. They see butterflies instead of worms and juice instead of blood, and can't smell their own rotting flesh. They went from surviving to becoming zombies. That's why I despite the vast majority of those that consider themselves spiritual. They are in fact lunatics disguised as saints. — Robin Sacredfire

I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying. It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The 'Watchmen' film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can't we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change. — Alan Moore

(The) Gray wagtail ... doesn't look like much, does he? Hardly a couple of ounces of feathers and bones. But that bird can fly to Africa and back. Powered by bugs and worms and desire. — Anthony Doerr

Such a structure would also raise a number of problems: first of all, which Timorese to pay compensation to? It would open a can of worms in terms of who was really a victim and who was not. — Jose Ramos-Horta

Since the early bird catches the worm, it's a good idea to begin your day as soon as you can
unless, of course, you happen to be a worm. — Ed Bliss

In the life of man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his senses a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, and his fame doubtful. In short, all that is of the body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapours; life a warfare, a brief sojourning in an alien land;and after repute, oblivion. Where, then, can man find the power to guide and guard his steps? In one thing and one alone: the love of knowledge. — Marcus Aurelius

If the aging process is controlled in a similar way in worms and humans, then we can use what we learn about worms to speed our study of higher organisms. — Cynthia Kenyon

Soul is not even that Crackerjack prize that God and Satan scuffle over after the worms have all licked our bones. That's why, when we ponder
as sooner or later each of us must
exactly what we ought to be doing about our soul, religion is the wrong, if conventional, place to turn. Religion is little more than a transaction in which troubled people trade their souls for temporary and wholly illusionary psychological comfort
the old give-it-up-in-order-to-save-it routine. Religions lead us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or at least insure it against fire theft. They are mistaken. — Tom Robbins

Doesn't look like much, does he?" murmurs Frederick. "Hardly a couple of ounces of feathers and bones. But that bird can fly to Africa and back. Powered by bugs and worms and desire."
The wagtail hops from twig to twig. Werner rubs his aching eyes. It's just a bird.
"Ten thousand years ago," whispers Frederick, "they came through here in the millions. When this place was a garden, one endless garden from end to end. — Anthony Doerr

It much honoureth God, when his servants can quietly and fearlessly trust in him, in the face of all the dangers and threatenings which devils or men can cast before them; and can joyfully suffer pain or death, in obedience to his commands, and in confidence on his promise of everlasting happiness. - This showeth that we believe indeed that "there is a God," and that "he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him," Heb. xi. 6; and that he is true and just; and that his promises are to be trusted on; and that he is able to make them good, in despite of all the malice of his enemies; and that the threats or frowns of sinful worms are contemptible to him that feareth God. Psal. lviii. 11, "So that men shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth," and that at last will judge the world in righteousness. — George Virtue

Julie looked like she was about to cry and waved her arms. "Whatever. Look, I'm not stupid. I know things! Adult things."
- "Like what?" "Like sex. I know about sex." I just stared at her. I wasn't opening that can of worms. — Ilona Andrews

Yes, You did tell them to 'Be fruitful and multiply,' but you didn't tell them to breed like rabbits. They are breaking out of the natural restraints You put on them. All creatures have population restraints to keep the world in balance. Rabbits have foxes, worms have birds, and the stronger ones are killed by disease. These restraints work fine on other animals, but the humans have killed off every natural predator they've ever had and cured every disease that has threatened their numbers. If they haven't found a cure for it, then they've found a way to patch the patient up well enough so that he or she can make more babies. God, Your people have a problem and it's their own fault. — Russell A Mebane

Worms'-Meat, n. The finished product of which we are the raw material. The contents of the Taj Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the Granitarium. Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that houses it, but "this too must pass away." Probably the silliest work in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for himself. The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by contrast the foreknown futility. — Ambrose Bierce

There are no arguments. Can anyone who has reached the limit bother with arguments, causes, effects, moral considerations, and so forth? Of course not. For such a person there are only unmotivated motives for living. On the heights of despair, the passion for the absurd is the only thing that can still throw a demonic light on chaos. When all the current reasons - moral, esthetic, religious, social, and so on - no longer guide one's life, how can one sustain life without succumbing to nothingness? Only by a connection with the absurd, by love of absolute uselessness, loving something which does not have substance but which simulates an illusion of life.
I live because the mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing. — Emil Cioran

If you have ever opened a can of worms, boxed yourself into a corner, ended up in hot water, or found yourself in a pretty pickle, you already know that life is rarely (if ever) just a bowl of cherries. — Maryrose Wood

I don't want to stir up a can of worms. — Alan Brazil

Of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let's choose executors and talk of wills; And yet not so - for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? — William Shakespeare

Fame is a can of worms I haven't really had to contend with. — Patty Griffin

Pour alcohol on a bundle of nerves and it generally turns into a can of worms. — Ross Macdonald

I don't really comment on my personal life because I feel like any comment at all is opening up a whole can of worms. I'd just rather not talk about who I'm dating. — Josh Hartnett

From a common-sense standpoint, you're probably on the right road. The problem is, you're opening a can of worms you might not be able to shut. That might cause more problems than it solves. — Kelvin Sampson

Never open a can of worms unless you plan to go fishing. — John C. Maxwell

There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow and endless drizzle.
You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.
Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again.
Whenever it rains you will think of her. — Neil Gaiman

Man has a mind that soars out to speculate about atoms and infinity, who can place himself imaginatively at a point in space and contemplate bemusedly his own planet. This immense expansion, this dexterity, this ethereality, this self-consciousness gives to man literally the status of a small god in nature ... Yet, at the same time ... man is a worm and food for worms — Ernest Becker

Stories are like snapshots, pictures snatched out of time, with clean hard edges. But this was life, and life always begins and ends in a bloody muddle, womb to tomb, just one big mess, a can of worms left to rot in the sun. — James Crumley

The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it. How deep, after all, can it go? If a person owns a piece of land, does he own it all the way down, in ever narrowing dimensions, till it meets all other pieces at the center of the earth? Or does ownership consist only of a thin crust under which the friendly worms have never heard of trespassing? — Natalie Babbitt

On the contrary, the male has a vested interest in ignorance; it gives the few knowledgeable men a decided edge on the unknowledgeable ones, and besides, the male knows that an enlightened, aware female population will mean the end of him. The healthy, conceited female wants the company of equals whom she can respect and groove on; the male and the sick, insecure, unself-confident male female crave the company of worms. — Valerie Solanas

Famine is good to the corn-merchant, evil to the poor, and indifferent to those whose fortunes can at all times command a superfluity. Ambition is evil to the restless bosom it inhabits, to the innumerable victims who are dragged by its ruthless thirst for infamy, to expire in every variety of anguish, to the inhabitants of the country it depopulates, and to the human race whose improvement it retards; it is indifferent with regard to the system of the Universe, and is good only to the vultures and the jackals that track the conqueror's career, and to the worms who feast in security on the desolation of his progress. It is manifest that we cannot reason with respect to the universal system from that which only exists in relation to our own perceptions. — Christopher Hitchens

O you proud Christians, wretched souls and small,/ Who by the dim lights of your twisted minds/ Believe you prosper even as you fall,/ Can you not see that we are worms, each one/ Born to become the angelic butterfly/ That flies defenseless to the Judgement Throne? — Dante Alighieri

Our body is a vessel of corruption; it is meant for death and for the worms, nothing more! And yet we devote ourselves to satisfying it, rather than to enriching our soul, which is so great that we can conceive nothing greater - no, nothing, nothing! — John Vianney

It was a curiously happy picture: a dark-haired girl...sternly cautioning her bare-kneed younger brother not to be so loud in church, then bending down to whisper with a mischievous smile, 'If you can only sit still for five more minutes, once we are out of here I will play a great game with you. You will enjoy it.' Flash of merry dark eyes. 'There will be worms involved. — Lauren Baratz-Logsted

August 21.
... I've become pretty good at telling weeds fom not-weeds. But every once in a while I have my doubts. I come across an especially difficult root. I pull and it doesn't come out. I pull again. It resists. I dig my gloved fingers into the soil and grab it with both hands and pull yet again. It begins to come out, but I can see it's going to take several more hard pulls. And that's when the doubts begin. I begin to wonder: Have I made a mistake? Is this really a weed? If it's not supposed to be here, why is it resisting so? But it's too late now. There's nothing to do with a plant half pulled but to go all the way. And so I tug some more, and finally, shedding clods of dirt and worms, it breaks free of the earth---and I try not to hear the tiny, anguished cry. — Jerry Spinelli

In the laboratory, we call this the six-degrees-of-separation-from-cancer rule: you can ask any biological question, no matter how seemingly distant - what makes the heart fail, or why worms age, or even how birds learn songs - and you will end up, in fewer than six genetic steps, connecting with a proto-oncogene or tumor suppressor. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Microbes are invisible to our naked eye, with a few exceptions that reinforce the rule. Millions can fit into the eye of a needle. But if you were to gather them all up, not only would they outnumber all the mice, whales, humans, birds, insects, worms, and trees combined - indeed all of the visible life-forms we are familiar with on Earth - they would outweigh them as well. Think about that for a moment. Invisible microbes comprise the sheer bulk of the Earth's biomass, more than the mammals and reptiles, all the fish in the sea, the forests. — Martin J. Blaser

Beware the ideas of March... just one little letter changes the whole meaning. I love the way worms can do that. — Alan Dapre

Do my ears deceive me, or can I actually hear the sounds of worms turning? You say a turning worm makes no sound? But how about a chorus of turning worms? — Calvin Trillin

When the word began to get out, the idea of tying imitations of aquatic worms was not met with universal approval in the fly-fishing community. It seems that worms had somehow gotten a bad name. I think a fishing pal of mine hit it on the head when he said, It just pisses them off that you can catch trout, I mean really big trout, on a fly that a five-year old can tie in twenty seconds! — Ed Engle

I can hear clouds drifting across the sky! The worms beneath my feet ... demand freedom from the darkness ... the secret hopes of humankind ... all of it trivial. I can see into other worlds ... other universes ... they're calling out to me. They've always called to me! I never knew that until now, but now I know everything. — Kirkland Ciccone

If I die here in Glasgow, I shall be eaten by worms; If I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; for in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer. — John Gibson Paton

I believe that time destroys everything. You can take one beautiful apple, red. After a while, it becomes shrivelled and full of worms, just like what happens to us. — Monica Bellucci

And you probably have little idea of how delicious - how toothsome - how scrumptious - they are when eaten fresh. Of course, I have my worm larder -" He corrected himself. "Worm larders, well stocked, but the earthworm pursued, or promptly pounced upon, and eaten fresh - as I've said - Ah! the earthworm, there's nothing like it! You can have your slugs and your wireworms and your leatherjackets and as many ground beetles as you like to eat - snap! crackle! crunch! You can have them all! There's nothing to equal the near liquefaction of worm meat as I pass its length through my fingers, sieving out the earth granules from the creature's incessant feeding. Or alternatively tear it to eat at once in great guzzling, gulping chunks. — Philippa Pearce

Man wasn't made to share the universe with gods. Their ways are not meant for the humble likes of us. But we've decoded some of their secrets regardless. Like worms, we've grabbed on to the talons of eagles and learnt some small truths and means of flight. But we can never really fly. We try, and succeed to a certain extent, but the fall is always - will always be - there. To be a druid is to embrace death, dance with it a while and finally fall prey to it. That is why we'll never rule this world. We have the power to bend all men to our whim, but are forever pushing ourselves further, trying to fly higher ... and falling. — Darren Shan

There's a big difference between merely carrying the world inside you and knowing that you do! A madman can produce ideas that resemble Plato's, and a pious little schoolboy in a Herrnhut institute can creatively reconstruct profound mythological associations in his mind, ideas to be found in the Gnostics or Zoroaster. But he doesn't know he's doing it! He's a tree or a stone, at best an animal, just as long as he doesn't know that. But when the first spark of that knowledge glimmers, he becomes a human being. You certainly don't consider all the bipeds running around the street to be human beings merely because they walk upright and carry their young for nine months? After all, you see how many of them are fish or sheep, worms or leeches, how many are ants, how many are bees! Now, each one of them has the potentiality of becoming a human being, but only when he senses that potential, when he even learns to be conscious of it to some degree, does that potential belong to him. — Hermann Hesse

I am explicitly not opening the giant can of worms that is the ongoing current discussion of patent, copyright, and trademark reform. — James Fallows

Nature has provided two great gifts: life and then the diversity of living things, jellyfish and humans, worms and crocodiles. I don't undervalue the investigation of commonalities but can't avoid the conclusion that diversity has been relatively neglected, especially as concerns the brain. — Theodore Holmes Bullock

Like Marxism, Thatcherism is, in fact, riddled with contradictions. Mrs. Thatcher, on the other hand, is free of doubt; she is the label on the can of worms. — Julian Critchley

If you are going to open a can of worms, you better be prepared to go fishing! — Mary Walters

Pedestrian's rights - because we live in California, I've got to address this issue. I don't know where on the fence I am about that. I suppose if I'm walking, I'm all for it, but if I'm driving, that's a whole other can of worms. — Janeane Garofalo

I'll tell you if you tell me," I say, washing my hands of maturity. I'm tired of the double standard-she keeps secrets, but I'm not allowed. Also, I'm tired, period. I need sleep. Which means I need answers.
"What do you mean? Tell you what?"
"I'll tell you what we were really doing out there. After you tell me who my real parents are." There, I opened it. A chunky can of wiggling worms.
She laughs, just like I expect her to. "Are you serious?"
I nod. "I know I'm adopted. I want to know how. Why. When."
She laughs again, but there's something false in it, as if it wasn't her first reaction. "So that's what this is about? You're rebelling because you think you're adopted? Why on earth would you think that?"
I fold my hands in front of me on the table. "Look at me. We both know I'm different. I don't look like you or Dad."
"That's not true. You have my chin and mouth. And there's no disinheriting the McIntosh nose. — Anna Banks

Then you compared a woman's love to Hell,
To barren land where water will not dwell,
And you compared it to a quenchless fire,
The more it burns the more is its desire
To burn up everything that burnt can be.
You say that just as worms destroy a tree
A wife destroys her husband and contrives,
As husbands know, the ruin of their lives. — Geoffrey Chaucer

We deny that we are part of the feast and seek to remove ourselves from it, even though we kill and consume animals by the billions and permanently remove the life resources for many more. But not one animal is allowed to consume us, even after we are dead. Not even the worms. We need a new creation story that connects us to nature and to others, one that can give us strength-- that can make us real rather than rich. Nature, religions, and science coincide on the real: kinship with each other and with the mountains and prairies, oceans and forests. — Bernd Heinrich