Quotes & Sayings About Chopping

My men have suffered greatly (from boredom), much blood has been shed (by mosquitoes), and I have swung my ax mightily (chopping firewood). Surely we have earned our place in the annals of history - for never has there been so little war in a war. — Seth Grahame-Smith

We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy
sun, wind and tide. I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. — Thomas A. Edison

A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not be a good subjectfor Christianity. The New Testament may be a choice book to him on some, but not on all or most of his days. He will rather go a-fishing in his leisure hours. The Apostles, though they were fishers too, were of the solemn race of sea-fishers, and never trolled for pickerel on inland streams. — Henry David Thoreau

Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. — Matsuo Basho

I went through a wood-chopping phase when I was nine or 10. — Jennifer Lawrence

"Fun?" you ask. "Weren't feminists these grim-faced, humorless, antifamily, karate-chopping ninjas who were bitter because they couldn't get a man?" Well, in fact the problem was that all too many of them HAD gotten a man, married him, had his kids, and then discovered that, as mothers, they were never supposed to have their own money, their own identity, their own aspirations, time to pee, or a brain. And yes, some women indeed became bad-tempered as a result. After all, no anger, no social change. — Susan J. Douglas

In the summer of 2007, I was sitting in a studio in Dublin, debating with a lay spokesman of the Roman Catholic Church who turned out to be the only believing Christian on a discussion panel of five people. He was a perfectly nice and rather modest logic-chopping polemicist, happy enough to go for a glass of refreshment after the program, and I suddenly felt a piercing stab of pity for him. A generation ago in Ireland, the Church did not have to lower itself in this way. It raised its voice only slightly, and was instantly obeyed by the Parliament, the schools, and the media. It could and did forbid divorce, contraception, the publication of certain books, and the utterance of certain opinions. Now it is discredited and in decline. Its once-absolute doctrines appear ridiculous: — Christopher Hitchens

At my second record label, they told me and other female artists that some of us were going on the chopping block. I was 19 ... and it was devastating. — Katy Perry

Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block. — Annie Dillard

In ten Muslim countries you can get the death penalty just for being gay. If they were chopping the heads off of gay people in the Vatican, wouldn't there be a greater outcry among liberals? — Bill Maher

Good lord. Building stone patios, chopping wood, and walking everywhere was a workout video he needed to put on the market. ASAP. — Mia Sheridan

The man behind the counter at the donut store had been somewhat less than courteous ever since I had prematurely tried to hypnotize him during my first month of practice. Now as I re-entered the donut store he fixed me with a chilly glare. I sauntered up to the counter, then I threw upon him my hypnotizingest glare. "You are getting sleep," I told him. "No, you are getting sleepy," he retorted, his hypnotic eyes boring into mine. The son-of-a-bitch had been studying hypnotism too! "You are a young Georage Washington, and you've been chopping down the cherry tree," I asserted, and he became the boy President. "I cannot tell a lie," he piped in a childish voice. But it didn't last, and he shook my control free. "You are Anne Boleyn," he said, and it was true! "Don't cut off my head!" I begged... — Michael Kupperman

If I had admitted my guilt, it would have been the same as putting my head on the chopping block - lifetime ban. Death penalty. I spent my entire life on the baseball fields of America, and I was not going to give up my profession without first seeing some hard evidence ... right or wrong, the punishment didn't fit the crime, so I denied the crime. — Pete Rose

Dan would entertain Owen and me by describing Mr. Tubulari's pentathlon, his "winterthon." "The first event," Dan Needham said, "is something wholesome, like splitting a cord of wood - points off, if you break your ax. Then you have to run ten miles in deep snow, or snowshoe for thirty. Then you chop a hole in the ice, and - carrying your ax - swim a mile under a frozen lake, chopping your way out at the opposite shore. Then you build an igloo - to get warm. Then comes the dogsledding. You have to mush a team of dogs - from Anchorage to Chicago. Then you build another igloo - to rest." "THAT'S SIX EVENTS," Owen said. "A PENTATHLON IS ONLY FIVE." "So forget the second igloo," Dan Needham said. "I WONDER WHAT MISTER TUBULARI DOES FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE," Owen said. "Carrot juice," Dan said, fixing himself another whiskey. "Mister Tubulari makes his own carrot juice. — John Irving

Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping ... you'd see the ax flash and come down-you don't hear nothing; you see the ax go up again, and by the time it's above the man's head then you hear the k'chunk!-it had took all that time to come over the water. — Mark Twain

The habitual dualist's solution to the problem of dualism: to solve the dilemma by chopping off one of the horns. — Alan Watts

Her philosophy was, if it had a pulse, it could be killed. I didn't really have a philosophy, but I could see how talking with the school director would be difficult for her. If he said something she didn't like, chopping him to tiny pieces wouldn't exactly help me get into the school. — Ilona Andrews

I never tried to ingratiate myself with great writers. When a great writer has nothing to say, he does something else, like chopping firewood. A great writer doesn't try to find something to write about, he only writes when he has to. I was no great writer. I've always had the need to unload my thoughts, and so had to live with a kind of mental incontinence, but I've never felt forced to write a novel. Nor, for that matter, have I ever chopped firewood. — Jostein Gaarder

How was Gengo to know, Saigyo reflected, that this unheroic existence imposed even greater torment than the icy lashings of the Nachi Falls in its thousand-foot leap? How was Gengo to realize that Saigyo had not slept a single night undisturbed since he had fled his home for the Eastern Hills, that his sleep was haunted by the cries of his beloved daughter from whom he had torn himself.
Who knew that during the day, when he went about his tasks of drawing water and chopping wood as he composed verses, the sighting of the wind in the treetops of the valleys below and the pines surrounding the temple sounded to him like the mourning of his young wife, and so troubled his nights that sleep no longer visited him? Never again would Saigyo find peace. He had wrenched asunder the living boughs of the tree that was his life. Remorse and compassion for his loved ones would dog him to the end of his days. — Eiji Yoshikawa

No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one's hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. — Emily St. John Mandel

Seven little crazy kids chopping up sticks;
One burnt her daddy up and then there were six.
Six little crazy kids playing with a hive;
One tattooed himself to death and then there were five.
Five little crazy kids on a cellar door;
One went all schizo and then there were four.
Four little crazy kids going out to sea;
One wouldn't say a word and then there were three.
Three little crazy kids walking to the zoo;
One jerked himself too much and then there were two.
Two little crazy kids sitting in the sun;
One a took a bunch of pills and then there was one.
One little crazy kid left all alone;
He went and slit his wrists, and then there were none. — Michael Thomas Ford

Kenzo glances up from his chopping. "You look good enough to eat."
"Don't tell that to Stu's sleepwalkers," I say. — Carolyn Crane

We pick and choose our favorite verses while ignoring the texts we cannot comprehend or don't particularly like. We rationalize the verses that are too radical. We scrub down the verses that are too supernatural. We put Scripture on the chopping block of human logic and end up with a neutered gospel. We commit intellectual idolatry, creating God in our image. So instead of living a life that resembles the supernatural standard set in Scripture, we follow an abridged version of the Bible that looks an awful lot like us. — Mark Batterson

Long gone are the days of the stylised old James Bond films with Roger Moore karate chopping his way through the bad guys - audiences are not going to buy it anymore. The genre has got quite serious now. — Adam Rayner

A sound of laughter was heard-they turned sharply. Vera Claythorne was standing in the yard. She cried out in a high shrill voice, shaken with wild bursts of laughter:
"Do they keep bees on this island? Tell me that. Where do we go for honey? Ha! ha!"
They stared at her uncomprehendingly. It was as though the sane well-balanced girl had gone mad right before their eyes. She went on in that high unnatural voice:
"Don't stare like that! As though you thought I was mad. It's sane enough what I'm asking. Bees, hives, bees! Oh, don't you understand? Haven't you read that idiotic rhyme? It's up in all of your bedrooms-put it there for you to study! We might have come here straightaway if we'd had sense. Seven little soldiers chopping up sticks. And the next verse, I know the whole thing by heart, I tell you! Six little soldier boys playing with a hive. And that's why I'm asking-do they keep bees on this island- isn't it damned funny ... ? — Agatha Christie

Turn the preparing of food into a communal affair by enlisting others to help with the chopping, grating, stirring, simmering, tasting and seasoning. When the cooking is finished, eat together round the table with the electronic gadgets switched off so you can savor the food and let the conversation flow. — Carl Honore

I can only tell you there's a lot of bad things going on. They're chopping off heads in Syria, and they're chopping off heads all over the Middle East.ISIS is doing a number, and plenty of other beyond ISIS is doing it now. And all I know is that, when they start chopping off heads, we have to be very firm, we have to be very strong, we have to be very vigilant. And I heard a statement, and I disagree with his statement. — Donald Trump

I commenced retrieval of vegetables and herbs from the refrigerator. "Let me help," she said. "I can chop something." The implication was that chopping could be done by an inexperienced person unfamiliar with the recipe. After her comment that she was unable to cook even in a life-threatening situation, I had visions of huge chunks of leek and fragments of herbs to fine to sieve out. — Graeme Simsion

Maybe he got tired of waiting and he'd gone without me though I doubted that was the case and decided he was probably doing something Max-ish. Chopping wood. Building a barn. Saving a child in distress or climbing a tree to rescue a cat. Stuff like that. — Kristen Ashley

Li Gui called out, "Sir, if you kill me you will kill two persons."

"How do you make that out?" asked Li Kui, staying the blow.

"At home I support my mother who is ninety years of age, and this is my only means of helping her in her old age," said Li Gui. "I never injure people, but only make them afraid. If you kill me, my old mother will die of starvation."

Li Kui who never twinkled his eyes in chopping off people's heads, paused and thought when he heard this. "Here am I trying to succour my old mother, and yet killing a man who supports his old mother. Heaven will not allow me to live if I do this. No! No! I will forgive this man.

(J.H. Jackson translation) — Shi Nai'an

They walked across 15th Street to the Madison Hotel's Montpelier Room, an opulent French restaurant. Bradlee asked for a corner table, and began the conversation. 'You'd better bring me up to date because ... ' He turned to order lunch in perfect French, and then turned back to Woodward. ' ... our cocks are on the chopping block now and I just want to know a little bit more about this. — Carl Bernstein

My late wife Olympia was Goan and I've been to India many times. I love the food there. We used to do our shopping in Southall, where you can find cheap but wonderful fruit like mangoes, vegetables and spices. I didn't do much of the cooking, as Olympia did a lot - I was the under-chef and did some of the chopping. — Vince Cable

Anytime you lose one fight in the UFC, you kind of have to feel like you are on the chopping block. There is so much competition in this sport. — Charlie Brenneman

A little kid asks my dad why that man is chopping down the tree.
Dad: He's not chopping it down. He's saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch - by the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block. — Laurie Halse Anderson

When you kill someone by chopping off their head, rolling 'em up in a carpet and burning it, you'd better make sure they're dead! — Colin Mochrie

hefted the pickaxe and attacked the three-inch-thick layer of gray-white ice. Frozen chips and droplets of water speckled his face as he swung the chopping tool. He pushed and scooted the bigger chunks to the edge of the trough with the pickaxe, then gritted his — Gene Shelton

It is an amazing fact of human nature that one year we can be chopping each other up [and] the next we can be sharing a pint. We continually devolve into conflict, no matter how much we evolve. — Brad Pitt

A lot of people think medicine hunting is all Chris trekking through the jungle. Or, for that matter, the chiefs and (male) elders he works with. The men get the headlines, but it's the women behind the scenes who are doing the planting and harvesting and chopping. — Zoe Helene

I had gotten to the point where I just didn't want to perform anymore - I didn't want to be on the chopping block anymore. I started to want to withdraw and retreat from it. — Guillermo Del Toro

The indifferent pendulum of the clock kept chopping off the seconds of life, calmly and precisely. — Maxim Gorky

Liars are experts in chopping logic and missing the truth slightly - 'Did God say not to eat from any tree?' In order to pin a liar down, words must be defined in the most careful manner available. — Douglas Wilson

They [muslims] are chopping off heads in Syria. Christianity is under siege. I'm Protestant, Presbyterian, and I'm proud of it. Other religions frankly are banding together, we need to band together. — Donald Trump

Where is Richard, do you know?"
"Chopping onions on the back step. Oh, you mean Master Richard? Upstairs. Eating. Where's anybody? — Hilary Mantel

No touching!" Maureen shouted before chopping at their joint hands, breaking the contact. — K.M. Shea

By neglecting our garden, we are storing up for ourselves, in the not very distant future, a world catastrophe as bad as any atomic war, and we are doing it with all the bland complacency of an idiot child chopping up a Rembrandt with a pair of scissors. — Gerald Durrell

Sometimes I consider chopping my hair down to a nice manageable three inches, but I would miss it too much. It's less useful and more confidence-boosting, like Superman's cape. — Melissa F. Olson

It's a funny thing about bogs. You can fill them with rocks and sand and old logs and make a little fenced-in yard on top with a woodpile and chopping block - but bogs go right on behaving like bogs. Early in the spring they breathe ice and make their own mist, in remembrance of the time when they had black water and their own sedge blossoming untouched. — Tove Jansson

If you were chopping up hookers or eating runaways, you'd try to look normal. — Gillian Flynn

He didn't shout, "I love you!" for example, because self-conscious people don't shout that sort of thing. At that time, however, the Norwegian had other opportunities of expressing himself. He could express irritation or anger by going outside and chopping down a tree, or throwing big stones in the water.*
*As is known, the Norwegian coast is surrounded by thousands of larger and smaller stones (The Skerries). This is very likely a sign that there was considerable irritation during the Norwegian Stone Age. — Odd Borretzen

I hate that whole Tarantino thing about beating up women and killing them and chopping up. Just because you have the mind of a 12 year old. — Julie Delpy

Cats?" Baba looked up from practicing chopping tomatoes, looking as if he might explode. "Kittens? 'Persian' should remind people of the empire that stretched from one side of the East to the other. The empire that set a new global standard, contributed mountainfuls to astronomy, science, mathematics, and literature, and had a leader, Cyrus the Great, who had the gumption to free the Jewish people and declare human rights! That empire! You can't be shortsighted when you look at history. History is long!" Baba was shouting now. He continued to slice tomatoes. "Cats! What have we been reduced to? — Marjan Kamali

There were no fear of death in children's eyes because they had seen hanging, stoning to death and chopping heads in playgrounds and parks. — M.F. Moonzajer

When digital watches were invented years later they reminded me of five-minute checks. They murdered time in the same way -slowly- chopping off pieces of it and lobbing them into the dustbin with a little click to let you know time was gone. Click, swish, "Checks," swish, click: another five minutes of life down the drain. And spent in this place. — Susanna Kaysen

That's when I consider chopping off their arms and then blaming them for not picking up their severed arms so they can take them to the hospital to get reattached. Just pick them up and take them to get fixed. IT'S NOT THAT HARD, SARAH. I pick up stuff all the time. We all do. No, I'm not going to help you because you have to learn to do this for yourself. I won't always be around to help you, you know. I'm sure you could do it if you just tried. Honestly, it's like you don't even want to have arms. — Jenny Lawson

Some series teach us that ethnic features must be "fixed," by drastic means if necessary. Plastic surgeons with questionable ethics give insecure women of all ethnicities boob jobs, liposuction, and face-lifts on shows such as Extreme Makeover, The Swan, and Dr. 90210, ignoring medical risks and reinforcing problematic ideas about women's worth. Yet they don't make white surgical candidates feel like their cultural identity should also be on the chopping blocking - or that they'd be so much more attractive and fulfilled if only they didn't look so... Caucasian.

In contrast, TV docs' scalpels reduce or remove racial markers on patients of colour. Black women's noses and lips are made smaller. In an increasingly common procedure targeting Asian women, creases are added to Asian women's eyelids. — Jennifer L. Pozner

As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship? — David Ogilvy

After dinner the babies get fussy and Min puts a mush of ice cream and Hershey's syrup in their bottles and we watch The Worst That Could Happen, a half-hour of computer simulations of tragedies that have never actually occurred but theoretically could. A kid gets hit by a train and flies into a zoo, where he's eaten by wolves. A man cuts his hand off chopping wood and while wandering around screaming for help is picked up by a tornado and dropped on a preschool during recess and lands on a pregnant teacher. ("Sea Oak") — George Saunders

I love this pedal to death. The only way you could keep me from playing one is by chopping off my legs! — Kirk Hammett

Working on your biceps? Try chopping down a cherry tree. — George Washington

I am not a total pervert. Although, to be honest, consider the night we've been having. First handcuffs, and
now this? Way more kinky than I expected."
"Please," M'cal said. "Do not talk."
"You like the strong and silent type, huh?"
"If you do not shut up, I will kill you with my voice."
"I love it when you talk dirty."
"Fine. Which would you prefer to lose first? Your soul or your testicles?"
"You know, you're just a bit obsessed with chopping off balls. Do you have issues with your masculinity? — Marjorie M. Liu

Now, as to the view that this is how anyone who had suffered imperialism or colonialism would behave: no, it's not. Entire countries such as India, were colonized. There's a difference between what's happening in Iraq with the so-called Islamic State's attempted genocide of the Yazidi community and how Gandhi acted in India. Let's take Iraq as a case study and think about it: What does killing the Yazidi population on Mount Sinjar have to do with US foreign policy? What does enforcing headscarves (tents, in fact) on women in Waziristan and Afghanistan, and lashing them, forcing men to grow beards under threat of a whip, chopping off hands, and so forth, have to do with US foreign policy? — Sam Harris

I can tell you that "Just cheer up" is almost universally looked at as the most unhelpful depression cure ever. It's pretty much the equivalent of telling someone who just had their legs amputated to "just walk it off." Some people don't understand that for a lot of us, mental illness is a severe chemical imbalance rather just having "a case of the Mondays." Those same well-meaning people will tell me that I'm keeping myself from recovering because I really "just need to cheer up and smile." That's when I consider chopping off their arms and then blaming them for not picking up their severed arms so they can take them to the hospital to get reattached. — Jenny Lawson

Pia was chopping up an enormous cabbage, a cabbage big as a basketball. The cabbage was of an extraordinary size. It was a big cabbage. "That's a big cabbage," Edward said. "Big," Pia said. — Donald Barthelme

She could surely rise to a dishwasher, but she prefers to use her children. She believes that a row of children chopping vegetables is a better thing than a machine. — Barbara Trapido

In the Middle East, we have people chopping the heads off Christians, we have people chopping the heads off many other people. We have things that we have never seen before - as a group, we have never seen before, what's happening right now.The medieval times - I mean, we studied medieval times - not since medieval times have people seen what's going on. I would bring back waterboarding and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding. — Donald Trump

For dinner Jade microwaves some Stars-n-Flags. They're addictive. They put sugar in the sauce and sugar in the meat nuggets. I think also caffeine. Someone told me the brown streaks in the Flags are caffeine. We have like five bowls each.
After dinner the babies get fussy and Min puts a mush of ice cream and Hershey's syrup in their bottles and we watch The Worst That Could Happen, a half hour computer simulation of tragedies that have never actually occurred but theoretically could. A kid gets hit by a train and flies into a zoo, where he's eaten by wolves. A man cuts his hand off chopping wood and while he's wandering around screaming for help is picked up by a tornado and dropped on a preschool during recess and lands on a pregnant teacher. — George Saunders

It seemed to Rand like years since there had not been firewood to split. But complaining would not keep the house warm, so he fetched the axe, propped up bow and quiver beside the chopping block, and got to work. Pine for a quick, hot flame, and oak for long burning. — Robert Jordan

The problem with TV now is that there's so much competition, that you're always on the chopping block. — Elisha Cuthbert

Zombies, what are you going to do with them? Just keep chopping them up, shooting at them, shooting at them. — Martin Scorsese

They absorb carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. What could be more desirable? And they look good in the bargain. Stop chopping down the rain forests and plant more saplings, and we're on our way. — Isaac Asimov

When brother Brigham and brother Joseph Young went up to see the Prophet, they found him chopping wood; for he was a labouring man, and gained his bread by the sweat of his brow. They made themselves acquainted with him. He received them gladly, invited them to his house, and they rejoiced together in the Gospel of Christ, and their hearts were knitted together in the spirit and bond of union. — Wilford Woodruff

Tengo was about to say something when he heard the connection cut. Everybody was hanging up on him. Like chopping down a rope bridge. — Haruki Murakami

Just like she intended to be with him for Christmas and make him buy a potted tree because, while she didn't like artificial pines, she also couldn't stand the thought of chopping a live one down for decoration. So, every year, she bought a live pine tree, and once Christmas was done, she kept it watered and healthy until spring when she could plant it. — Eve Langlais

There's great value to knitting or digging up your garden or chopping up vegetables for soup, because you're taking some time away from turning the pages, answering your emails, talking to people on the phone, and you're letting your brain process whatever is stuck up in there. — Chellie Pingree

Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself. — D.H. Lawrence

I would always drink purple drink - syrup. I would just be in a room, screwing and chopping up music. It was like an alter ego - I would turn into another person when I was on a substance. My music would get darker and weirder, and it inspired a lot of people. But I've changed my life and stopped smoking. I like to turn up and have fun when I get the chance, but I don't overdo it now. — SpaceGhostPurrp

He was dead again when I got home that day. His corpse was in the kitchen, near the counter, where it appeared he'd been chopping vegetables when the urge to stab himself through the wrist had struck. I slipped on the blood coming in, which annoyed me because that meant it was all over the kitchen floor. — N.K. Jemisin

Every time you get angry with yourself for where you are in your process of growth, it's the equivalent of chopping off the head of the rose because it hasn't bloomed yet. Now you have to go through that part of the process again. Anger will set you back every time and slow down your growth. However, self-compassion and self-encouragement are like water and sunshine; they help the growth process happen faster and easier. It's up to you how you want to proceed, but if you can break the habit of getting angry with yourself and replace it with some compassion and encouragement, then you will bloom like you have never bloomed before. — Emily Maroutian

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results. — Albert Einstein

You came to lands that were not yours, murdered thousands of men, raped their women, enslaved their children, and think your soul is clean because their holy book's a little different from yours! You keep the demons from them, ay, but chickens on the chopping block don't call the butcher Deliverer for keeping the fox at bay. — Peter V. Brett

In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau

So I decided to do it [hike the Appalachian Trail]. More rashly, I announced my intention - told friends and neighbors, confidently informed my publisher, made it common knowledge among those who knew me. Then I bought some books ... It required only a little light reading in adventure books and almost no imagination to envision circumstances in which I would find myself caught in a tightening circle of hunger-emboldened wolves, staggering and shredding clothes under an onslaught of pincered fire ants, or dumbly transfixed by the sight of enlivened undergrowth advancing towards me, like a torpedo through water, before being bowled backwards by a sofa-sized boar with cold beady eyes, a piercing squeal, and slaverous, chopping appetite for pink, plump, city-softened flesh. — Bill Bryson

I feel we don't really need scriptures. The entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food. If you can't learn from your daily activities, how are you going to understand the scriptures? (233) — Swami Satchidananda

With these words of prayer he threw the barley-grains. The two heroes responsible for the oxen, might Ankaios and Herakles, girded themselves in preparation. The latter crashed his club down on the middle of the forehead of one ox; in one movement its heavy body fell to the ground. Ankaios cut the other's broad neck with his bronze axe, slicing through the tough tendons; it fell sprawling over its two horns. Their comrades quickly slaughtered and flayed the oxen, chopping and cutting them up and removing the thigh pieces for sacrifice These they covered all over with a thick layer of fat and burnt them on spits, while the son of Aison poured libations of unmixed wine. Idmon rejoiced as he gazed at the flame, which burnt brightly all around the sacrifices, and the favourable omen of the murky smoke, darting up in dark spirals. — Apollonius Of Rhodes

I went after him and picked him off with a right, like a predator and was all over him like a rash! I was in to him with a right hand lead and out to inflict pain, but it wasn't all one-sided! This guy was on a wing and a prayer when he threw a chopping right hand that whizzed past me with him on the other end of it ... I was blessed, or something!
I had to turn it on and step it up, because if he connected with one of those shots then I was chicken fodder! I could see that his wasted efforts were tiring him by the second. I boxed him from range and kept tying him up, I was now in to a rhythm, I swung lefts and rights, all of them smashing in to his head with an unrelenting ferocity.
By now his face was covered in blood and he was about to go down when the ref stepped in and stopped it. I won; I had defeated Goliath. — Stephen Richards

On the other end of the spectrum, we can't use this permission to sometimes say no and use it as a wand to wish away all our responsibilities. We also must remember not to use our "no" answers as a weapon. We can't turn into No! ninjas, karate-chopping anyone who even comes close to asking us for something. — Lysa TerKeurst

Tip: To avoid bruising the basil, Mama tore the leaves into pieces with her fingers. Chopping is fine, but you won't have basil-scented fingers. — Johnny Carrabba

Karate-chopping ninjas in a mudslide?" Tamara gave Aaron and Call a dark look. "Could you guys try to lay low? — Holly Black

The specific trigger for me was when the President [Barack Obama] put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block. Why I got into the race - it just seemed unconscionable that the Democrats were leading the charge. — Jill Stein

From tomorrow on,
I will be a happy man;
Grooming, chopping,
and travelling all over the world.
From tomorrow on,
I will care foodstuff and vegetables,
Living in a house toward the sea,
with Spring Blossoms. — Hai Zi

Every morning Papa brought in another pile of firewood and vines from the apple tree. Mama said they should keep busy knitting Papa's Christmas presents. Josie finished Papa's scarf and made one for Mama too. Katrina worked on Mama's pincushion, but she just couldn't concentrate on knitting Papa's socks while he sawed and hacked away at the apple tree. She had ripped out the heel and started over so many times that she had all but ruined the yarn from Mrs. Wooly.
"Well, I'll miss the old apple tree," said Mama, "but it will keep us warm this long winter."
"Yes, I'm thankful for the firewood," said Papa.
How could he be thankful, thought Katrina. Didn't he know that he was chopping up her studio? Didn't he know he was ruining her drawing board? Didn't he know she couldn't draw unless she were in the apple tree? — Trinka Hakes Noble

Laos is a country where everything is eaten. When I came back, I would find myself chopping parsley and thinking: 'Why am I throwing these stems away? They're perfectly edible.' — Ruth Reichl

Karrin Murphy led the charge, and Sanya and I tried to keep up. She went through that sea of foes like a little speedboat, her enemies spun and tossed and turned and disoriented in her wake. Sanya and I hacked our way through stunned foes, pushing and chopping with unsophisticated brutality-and that big Russian lunatic just kept laughing the whole time. — Jim Butcher

Apple smiled at Hunter. And then - yes - she batted her eyelashes. He put a fist on his hip. "Of course! I - " "But no shirt-ripping, if you please," Raven said. "Just the chopping. — Shannon Hale

After a day of writing, I love nothing more than to go into my kitchen and start chopping onions and garlic on the way to cooking an improvised meal with whatever ingredients are on hand. Cooking is the perfect counterpoint to writing. I find it more relaxing than anything else, even naps, walks, or hot baths. — Kate Christensen

It's like chopping down a huge tree of immense girth. You won't accomplish it with one swing of your axe. If you keep chopping away at it, though, and do not let up, eventually, whether it wants to or not, it will suddenly topple down. When that time comes, you could round up everyone you could find and pay them to hold the tree up, but they wouldn't be able to do it. It would still come crashing to the ground ... . But if the woodcutter stopped after one or two strokes of his axe to ask the third son of Mr. Chang, "Why doesn't this tree fall?" And after three or four more strokes stopped again to ask the fourth son of Mr. Li, "Why doesn't this tree fall?" he would never succeed in felling the tree. It is no different for someone who is practicing the Way. - ZEN MASTER HAKUIN — Robert Greene

I've heard that sound near every night for twenty-odd years and never heeded it. How much she does, I mean. But this last week I've sat here and heard the sound of her; the sound of her chopping up food, the posher banging in the wash tub, the oven door opening and closing. She never stops. I hear it now. The sound of her loving. — Davina Blake

One curve I'll always remember was when I was pitching for Pittsburgh. Terry Kennedy was a young player with St. Louis. I threw him an 0-2 curve and it snapped. Terry's reaction was to swing straight down, like he was chopping the plate with an axe. It was the last out of the inning. After I ran off the mound, I looked over at the St. Louis dugout. There were players rolling around on the floor, laughing. Poor Terry. I'll have to admit that was a hell of a curveball. — Bert Blyleven

After Nicholas hung up the phone, he watched his mother carry buckets and garden tools across the couch grass toward a bed that would, come spring, be brightly ablaze as tropical coral with colorful arctotis, impatiens, and petunias. Katherine dug with hard chopping strokes, pulling out wandering jew and oxalis, tossing the uprooted weeds into a black pot beside her.
The garden will be beautiful, he thought. But how do the weeds feel about it? Sacrifices must be made. — Stephen M. Irwin

If something

goes wrong, accuse yourself first. Don't be like Pharaoh chopping off the heads

of innocent babies, when the enemy he is looking for, Moses, was in his own house. — Jalaluddin Rumi