Clean It Up Quotes & Sayings

I had crossed the yard to him slowly, watching him draw closer, baffled by the way my heart was skittering around my chest. Then he'd picked me up and spun me in a circle, and I'd clung to him, breathing in his sweet, familiar smell, shocked by how much I'd missed him. Dimly, I'd been aware that I still had a shard of the blue cup in my hand, that it was digging into my palm, but I didn't want to let go.
When he finally set me down and ambled off to the kitchen to find his lunch, I stood there, my palm dripping blood, my head still spinning, knowing that everything had changed.
Ana Kuya had scoled me for getting blood on the clean kitchen floor. She'd bandaged my hand and told me it would heal. But I knew it would just go on hurting.
In the creaking silence of the cell, Mal kissed the scar on my palm, the wound made so long ago by the edge of that broken cup, a fragile thing I'd thought beyond repair. — Leigh Bardugo

Whoa, that's the kind of little sister I can dig!" said Edison.
"Yes, we're all alike," I said. "We cover for you, we lie for you, we take the heat for you. We clean up your messes and mollify our parents for you. We never fail to come across with undying adoration, whether or not you deserve it, and we can't take our lives as seriously as yours. We snuffle up the crumbs from your table on the rare occasions you notice we're alive. — Lionel Shriver

Okay, someone's been smoking the wacky tobacky. And keep your hands to yourself!" She smacked at his roving fingers, fighting the shivers following his touch. "I agreed to let you accompany me because, well...maybe you're right. We should try and put the animosity between our families-stop that!" She gripped his fingers and tried to twist them, but he easily pulled out of her grip.
Alessandro laughed. "Darling, I haven't laughed in ages like I do when I'm with you. I propose a clean slate, eh?" He sighed and sat back against the seat. "Brianna. I'm not going to give up until you are mine. You could make this so much easier if you just accept the inevitable." He lifted his hand to cup the side of her face. "We belong to each other, and you know it. — E. Jamie

Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger. Well that's the kind of situation we are actually in. The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what's needed to dissuade the other, that if it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable. What is necessary is to reduce the matches and to clean up the gasoline. — Carl Sagan

They have to be born, you know," the Third Rail says. "They don't come from nowhere! When a child sits in her chair with a clean suzuri and her long brush, she believes she is writing, but she is simply calling to these poor lambs, calling them to attend her, to pass through her. We can hardy keep up with the demand; the pollination season is intense. And yet, they learn fewer and fewer kanji as the years go by, and more and more English, more katakana, more foreign things. The graveyard is on another train, where turtles set incense on the stones of words no one learns in your world anymore, words passed out of reach of any mouth. It is important work we do. We hope you agree, of course, but we are willing to admit it foolish if you call it so. — Catherynne M Valente

Red blood is just so hard to clean up"
"You would know" I snap remembering Shade. "Because no matter how hard you try to hid it I see it all over your hands — Victoria Aveyard

It meant that when she saw him for the first time in every life,Daniel was already in love with her. Every time. And always had been. And every time, she had to fall in love with him from scratch.He could never pressure her or push her into loving him. He had to win her anew each time. Daniel's love for her was one long, uninterrupted stream.It was the purest form of love there was,purer even than the love Luce returned. His love flowed without breaking,without stopping. Whereas Luce's love was wiped clean with every death, Daniel's grew over time, across all eternity. How powerfully strong must it be by now? Hundreds of love stacked one on top of the other? It was almost too massive for Luce to comprehend. He loved her that much,and yet in every lifetime,over and over again,he had to wait for her to catch up. — Lauren Kate

It's hard for me to believe that just my words on the page are enough. I ought to be out physically keeping abortion safe and legal, restoring the Fourth Amendment, getting clean water back into Kentucky since the Bush Administration has allowed strip miners to fill it all up with slag. The list is endless. Bring it down. Make it small. Make it one thing that you can do. It's very hard for me to remember that. — Sara Paretsky

You can't depend on the man who made the mess to clean it up. — Richard M. Nixon

Roark looked at the clean white sheet before him, his fist closed tightly about the thin stem of a pencil. He put the pencil down, and picked it up again, his thumb running softly up and down the smooth shaft; he saw that the pencil was trembling. He put it down quickly, and he felt anger at himself for the weakness of allowing this job to mean so much to him, for the sudden knowledge of what the months of idleness behind him had really meant. His finger tips were pressed to the paper, as if the paper held them, as a surface charged with electricity will hold the flesh of a man who has brushed against it, hold and hurt. He tore his fingers off the paper. Then he went to work ... — Ayn Rand

The last 10% of game design is really what separates the good games from the great games. It's what I call the clean-up phase of game design. Here's where you make sure all the elements look great. The game should look good, feel good, sound good, play good. — Garry Kitchen

Male rats don't experience the hormonal changes that trigger maternal behavior in female rats. They never normally participate in infant care. Yet put a baby rat in a cage with a male adult and after a few days he will be caring for the baby almost as if he were its mother. He'll pick it up, nestle it close to him as a nursing female would, keep the baby rat clean and comforted, and even build a comfy nest for it.29 The parenting circuits are there in the male brain, even in a species in which paternal care doesn't normally exist.30 If a male rat, without even the aid of a William Sears baby-care manual, can be inspired to parent then I would suggest that the prospects for human fathers are pretty good. — Cordelia Fine

That was the biggest fear. I'd rather clean up before I went on the road. It's bad enough cleaning up by yourself, but the idea of putting the whole tour on the line because I could'n make it was too much; even for me — Keith Richards

Berlin is in a state of transition. There are lots of people who don't stay here. They pass through. They might not 'clean up,' but they mature. It is a city where people spend a significant time in their lives, and then they move on. — Raf Simons

You buy a house and you get it checked out and you feel like you've kind of made your mark here in some way. And then an act of God just comes up the coast and has the potential to just completely wipe it clean. Weather like that is certainly humbling. — James Van Der Beek

In a mucked up lovely river, I cast my little fly. I look at that river and smell it And it makes me want to cry. Oh to clean our dirty planet, Now there's a noble wish, And I'm puttin' my shoulder to the wheel 'Cause I wanna catch some fish. — Greg Brown

Maybe pick it up by mistake with the cleaning?" "It is there." "With the cleaning?" "In the closet." "No, it isn't. I looked." About to speak, Willie tightened her lips and scowled. Karl had walked in. "Good evening, Madam." He went to the sink for a glass of water. "Did you set those traps?" asked Chris. "No rats." "Did you set them?" "I set them, of course, but the attic is clean." "Tell me, how — William Peter Blatty

You have carjacking back in old England?"
"Carjacking?"
"People walk up to you, steal your car."
"No, but thanks for asking. We have people who clean your windscreen against your will, but, er ... "
Joe barked with contempt.
"The thing is," explained Dirk, "in London you could certainly walk up to someone and steal their car, but you wouldn't be able to drive it away."
"Some kinda fancy device?"
"No, just traffic," said Dirk. — Douglas Adams

Race you, I challenged, leaping up. It was a real nice night for a race. The air was clear and cold and so clean it almost sparkled. The moon wasn't out but the stars lit up everything. It was quiet except for the sound of our feet on the cement and the dry, scraping sound of leaves blowing across the street. It was a real nice night. I guess I was still out of shape, because we all thee tied. No. I guess we all just wanted to stay together. — S.E. Hinton

This is of monumental significance. The gift has been given - what we make of it is up to us. Unless we listen to counsel we will receive none. Unless we pray, exercise faith, love, obey, and keep the tabernacles of our spirits clean - we can have no claim upon this unspeakable gift. May we so live as to have the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help us make wise decisions. — F. Burton Howard

When we wake up and see reality as it is, a lot of people blame feminism. They twist everything around and claim that the feminist vision creates demands which are too high and contradictory, demands that break overworked women down with stress. They claim that everything was so much easier when women were housewives without the demands of work and career. Motherhood and a clean home were a woman's self-realization. Today most women work two jobs, one outside and one inside the home. Yet if we lived equally and men took just as much responsibility for the children and the home, women would not be broken down by the stress. Perhaps it is only possible to accept the difficulties if you see feminism as a resistance movement, and the only path to possible freedom. Because resistance almost always involves pain. — Maria Sveland

The snow had done what even wizards and the Watch couldn't do, which was clean up Ankh-Morpork. It hadn't had time to get dirty. In the morning it'd probably look as though the city had been covered in coffee meringue, but for now it mounded the bushes and trees in pure white. — Terry Pratchett

I'm at your house?" Kody asked.
"You don't have to sound so offended. I do have people clean it, you know?"
"Sorry." She sighed wearily. "You have no idea how confusing it is to wake up in a strange place with no idea how you got there."
Caleb laughed. "Sure I do. Happens to me frequently."
She rolled her eyes at his frightening lifestyle. "Yes, but I woke up in this bed alone. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I thought about every mundane moment that makes up that gray area of a person's life. It's the hour or two a day that you clean your kitchen or watch TV or do the laundry. All my gray moments with Mia were colored in: chasing her around the Laundromat, spraying water on her from the kitchen sink, or messing around with her on the couch while we spent whole days watching reruns of The Office. I looked forward to the rest of my life, even if the rest of my life only consisted of the humdrum day-in, day-out bullshit, it didn't matter because Mia turned the most unremarkable moments into moments I cherished. — Renee Carlino

You have friends who actually care about you and speak the language of the inner self. You have avoided them of late. Your soul is as disheveled as your apartment, and until you can clean it up a little you don't want to invite anyone inside. — Jay McInerney

Don't you ever think of going back? Silly question. There are threads that help you find your way back, and there are threads that intend to bring you back. Mind turns to the pull, it's hard to pull away. I'm always thinking of going back. When Lot's wife looked over her shoulder, she turned into a pillar of salt.Pillars hold things up, and salt keeps things clean, but it's a poor exchange for losing your self. People do go back, but they don't survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time. Such things are too much. You can salt your heart, or kill your heart, or you can choose between two realities. There is much pain here. Some people think you can have your cake and eat it. The cake goes mouldy and they choke on what's left. — Jeanette Winterson

Why do you have to make everyone hate you? (Talon)
What? You want to be my friend now, Celt? If I clean up my act, will you be my buddy? (Zarek)
You're such an asshole. (Talon)
Yeah, but at least I know what I am. I have no pretensions. You don't know if you're a Druid, a Dark-Hunter, or a playboy. You lost yourself a long time ago in the dark hole where you buried the parts of you that once made you human. (Zarek)
You are lecturing me on humanity? (Talon)
Ironic as hell, isn't it? (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

A big wind came up and I hoped a storm would break the heat. But it just blew a
lot of dust around, and at sunset we had to bar doors and windows against mosquitoes. It
didn't do much for our comfort level, but - here's where the Chemin takes you - we were
grateful. We were grateful because we had (albeit narrowly) escaped heatstroke; because
the shelter, though unbelievably hot, was clean and quiet; and most of all, because it slept
six but we had it to ourselves. No people to deal with at the end of your (and their)
tether; no sodden bathrooms. No snoring. Pilgrim camaraderie was all very well, but
sometimes it was too damn much. — Denise Fainberg

The whole notion of disruption is adolescent: It assumes that after the teenagers make a mess, the adults will come and clean it up.

But there are no adults. We own this mess. — Timothy Snyder

For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep that it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn't make all that much difference. They had formed a defective and asymmetrical friendship, made up of long absences and much silence, a clean and empty space where both could come back to breathe when the walls of their school became too close for them to ignore the feeling of suffocation. — Paolo Giordano

My Lolita had a way of raising her bent left knee at the ample and springy start of the service cycle when there would develop and hang in the sun for a second a vital web of balance between toed foot, pristine armpit, burnished arm and far back-flung racket, as she smiled up with gleaming teeth at the small globe suspended so high in the zenith of the powerful and graceful cosmos she had created for the express purpose of falling upon it with a clean resounding crack of her golden whip. — Vladimir Nabokov

We can only miss what we once possessed. We can only feel wronged when we realize something has been stolen from us. We can't miss the million-strong flocks of passenger pigeons that once blackened our skies. We don't really miss the herds of bison that grazed in meadows where our suburbs stand. And few think of dark forests lit up with the bright green eyes of its mammalian lords. Soon, the glaciers will go with the clear skies and clean waters and all the feelings they once stirred. It's the greatest heist of mankind, our inheritance being stolen like this. But how can we care or fight back when we don't even know what has been or is being taken from us? — Ken Ilgunas

How should anything be sacred to an advertiser?" demanded Ingleby, helping himself to four lumps of sugar. "We spend our whole time asking intimate questions of perfect strangers and it naturally blunts our finer feelings. 'Mother! Has your Child Learnt Regular Habits?' 'Are you Troubled with Fullness after Eating?' 'Are you satisfied about your Drains?' 'Are you Sure that your Toilet-Paper is Germ-free?' 'Your most Intimate Friends dare not Ask you this question.' 'Do you Suffer from Superfluous Hair?' 'Do you Like them to Look at your Hands?' 'Do you ever ask yourself about Body-Odour?' 'If anything Happened to You, would your Loved Ones be Safe?' 'Why Spend so much Time in the Kitchen?' 'You think that Carpet is Clean - but is it?' 'Are you a Martyr to Dandruff?' Upon my soul, I sometimes wonder why the long-suffering public doesn't rise up and slay us. — Dorothy L. Sayers

When he'd woken that morning to find her gone, he'd used the time alone to clean himself up in every sense of the word. Decisions about his future had been part of it, but there'd been more, too. Because in all the time they'd known one another he'd been completely unconcerned with his appearance. Now, however, he wanted to show her the man he truly was. More than that, the man she'd helped him become: healed, strong, capable. No longer in the shadows, but bathed in light. No longer in need of saving or protecting or anything. Except her. — Angela B. Wade

His skin smelled sweet, like milk and honey, and he'd shaved and trimmed his hair. Etta ran a hand over it.

"You're looking especially clean this morning," she said.

"I couldn't sleep," he said, "so I brought water up for a bath, and then more for you. The water should still be warm."

Pure joy exploded in her. "I could kiss you for that!"

"By all means," he said coyly. "Don't hold yourself back on my account. — Alexandra Bracken

Unless I'm asked to dress up in a costume, TV shows prefer a clean, modern look, so I've developed a wardrobe full of plain, bright colours. If it's an outdoors job, I just wear big jumpers. — Kate Williams

to shower. We'll see what kind of time I have left after that." "I can clean up, don't worry about it," Mitch said. "I got some sleep." "I need to be doing something now that I'm up," Angela said. After they tidied up, Angela retreated to bed for a while, saving a shower for later. She found sleep easily enough again, but it was still of the haunted variety. Some dreams were like her earlier ones, cruel but not revolting. Others were flat out nightmares. Walking hand-in-hand with him in the park only to have him vanish from right beside her. — C.M. Newman

So he's a bad guy."
"Everyone's bad."
"No," Bob said, "they're not. Most people are okay."
"Yeah?" A smile of disbelief.
"Yeah. They just, I dunno, make a lotta messes and then they make more messes trying to clean those first messes up and after a while that's your life."
She sniffled and chuckled at the same time. "That's it, uh?"
"That's it sometimes. — Dennis Lehane

I mean that there is no way to disarm any man," said Dr. Ferris, "except through guilt. Through that which he himself has accepted as guilt. If a man has ever stolen a dime, you can impose on him the punishment intended for a bank robber and he will take it. He'll bear any form of misery, he'll feel that he deserves no better. If there's not enough guilt in the world, we must create it. If we teach a man that it's evil to look at spring flowers and he believes us and then does it - we'll be able to do whatever we please with him. He won't defend himself. He won't feel he's worth it. He won't fight. But save us from the man who lives up to his own standards. Save us from the man of clean conscience. He's the man who'll beat us." "Are — Ayn Rand

It takes both courage and talent to stand up in front of fellow human beings and make them crack a smile, and at the same time keep it clean. — Ray Comfort

In a way, he made me think of a doll, with brilliant glass eyes - a doll that had been found in an attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him even more radiant than he was. "That's what you always wanted," he said softly. His tone was melancholy. "When you found me under Les Innocents, you wanted to bathe me with perfume and dress me in velvet."
"You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to emgrace and good to love." My tone was angry. We eyed each other for a moment. And then he surpised me, rising and coming towards me just as I moved to take him in my arms. His gesture wasn't tentative, but it was extremely gentle. We held each other tight for a moment. The cold embracing the cold. "I can't remember anything sad bweween us, " I said.
"You will," he responded. "And so will I. But what does it matter what we remember?"
"Yes," I said. "We're both still here. — Anne Rice

I'm leaning towards making something for kids nine and under
because I have kids now. I can clean it up and make it rated G. — Snoop Dogg

The locker rooms were clean when we departed because I asked the players to pick up after themselves. I believe this is just common courtesy. Somebody's going to have to clean it up, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be the person who messed it up. — John Wooden

As an athlete, you're brought up with that mentality that you finish everything you start. If you're going to start a meal, you're going to finish it until the plate is clean. I had to change that mentality to one of where, 'I eat until I'm full and leave the rest.' — Michael Strahan

The final match-up of the round was by far the most satisfying for Rezkin. It was against the mace wielding Sandman who had murdered the young stave-master. The beast had already attempted to end the life of another competitor that morning. Dark Tidings did not even give the man a chance to put on a show. As soon as the announcer finished speaking, he drew the black blade, strode forward with purpose and disarmed the man, literally. After losing both appendages, the brute fell to his knees in shock. While the healers were running to treat the man before he bled out, Dark Tidings stood over the Sandman and said, 'Bracken Freedon of the Isle of Sand. You have been judged and found guilty. Bring nigh to thee, King's Dark Tidings.' The black blade came down in one fell swoop and took the man's head clean from his body. Green lighting crackled within the black swords length... — Kel Kade

It's easy to make a mess when you're not the one who has to clean it up. — Criss Jami

When you are first hurt, your anger is fresh and bright and clean. It is hot and eager to defeat injustice. It makes you sharp and keen and quick. so that you can outrace your hurt and leave it lying on some faraway ground where it happened. This is why children cry so bitterly and scream until their faces go read at the smallest hunger or loneliness. They must get terribly, piercingly angry so that they can get out in front of all the little hurts of being new, or else they will never get free of them. But anger can go off like milk in the icebox. It can go hard and rotting and turn everything around it rotting too. By the time you have made your peace, your anger has reeked up your whole heart, it's so gunked up with fuming. That's why you must wash your anger every now and again, or else you can't even move an inch. — Catherynne M Valente

It's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop
and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.
You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.
That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.
And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what's more, you aren't out of breath. That's important, too ... (28-29) — Michael Ende

Relationships are two people; everyone is accountable. A lot goes into a relationship coming together, and a lot goes into a relationship falling apart. Even if it's 98 percent the other person's fault, it's 2 percent yours ... You can only clean up your side of the street. — Jennifer Aniston

Linsey pulled away, smiling in a way that would have made him look almost
angelic if it wasn't for the blood smeared around his mouth. When he licked his lips clean, the angelic image became clearer. Blood welled up from two small cuts on his bottom lip, pooling in the full sweep his skin. I knew it wasn't just my blood that I'd tasted. — Cyrese Covelli

So, what exactly does 'patrolling' entail?"
She shrugged. "Making sure the woods are clean of supes."
"Why would there be soup in-oh, 'supes'? Like for 'supernaturals'? Is that what you guys call us?"
Izzy didn't turn around, and it could have just been a trick of the light, but I thought the tips of her ears pinkened. "It's just something I made up," she mumbled, and I was very glad she had her back to me as a smile broke out over my face.
"I like that."
She spun around then, and I made sure my expression was deadly serious. "I mean it," I told her. "You know what we call ourselves, right? Prodigium." I made a derisive snort. "The only thing lamer and more pretentious than Latin is made-up Latin. — Rachel Hawkins

Sometimes everyone does the right thing and there's still a mess left to clean up. Someone has to take responsibility for it. — Kami Garcia

Can't clean up after you anymore, baby brother, so don't punk out. Make it count. — Rachel Vincent

It occurred to Susan that men were always waiting for something cataclysmic
love or war or a giant asteroid. Every man wanted to be a hot-headed Bruce Willis character, fighting against the evil foreign enemy while despising the domestic bureaucracy. Men just wanted to focus on one big thing, leaving the thousands of smaller messes for the women around them to clean up. — Bonnie Jo Campbell

Alcohol buoyed you up and it washed your eyes clean. — Robert Galbraith

If she had been a normal female, she would have swooned. But she was not normal, never had been.
"Good grief, you are impossibly handsome," she said breathlessly. "I vow, I have never experienced the like. For an instant, my brain stopped altogether. I must say, my lord, you do clean up well. But next time, I wish you would call out a warning before you come into view, and give me a chance to brace myself for the onslaught."
Something dark flickered in his eyes. Then a corner of his hard mouth quirked up. "Miss Adams, you have an interesting - a unique - way with a compliment."
The trace of a smile disoriented her further. "It is a unique experience," she said. "I never knew my brain to shut off before, not while I was full awake. I wonder if the phenomenon has been scientifically documented and what physiological explanation has been proposed. — Loretta Chase

In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. — Alice Walker

When you blow it, God still celebrates His Son in you. The litmus test of whether or not you understand the gospel is what you do when you fail. Do you run from Him and go clean yourself up a little bit before you come back into the throne room? Or do you approach the throne of grace with confidence? If you don't approach the throne of grace with confidence, you don't understand the gospel. — Matt Chandler

The longer I stay clean, the better my beats are getting and the easier it is to zero in on one idea. Because I really want to, often, try to get an idea across. I can really get to the essence of a song better if I'm clean and I'm not waking up with a hangover. — Larry Tee

But Nebraska was not always a bed of roses. When the first settlers arrived, they found a harsh, unforgiving place, a vast treeless expanse of barren, drought-parched soil. And so, summoning up the dynamic pioneer spirit of hope and steely determination, they left. But a few of them remained and built sod houses, which are actually made of dirt. Think about that. You can't clean a sod house, because it would be gone. The early settlers had a hell of a time getting this through to their children. "You kids stop tracking dirt out of the house!" they'd yell. — Dave Barry

A healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk. — Theodore Roosevelt

I was dreaming about this - except it feels even better than I thought it would. Fucking fantastic. Clean sheets. You"

Warrick moved across and kissed him gently, exactly as he'd imagined. Soft cotton and warm skin against him, soothing and luxurious. Hand on his back, touching carefully. He had a moment of fear that this was the dream, that soon he would wake up in the cell. Then a noise distracted him: distant firing in the city. He tensed, and Warrick's hand stroked a circle over his shoulder-blade. More firing, but it was nothing to do with him. Nothing to worry about, even if he could manage it. Safe, here.

He recaptured the tail end of a thought, before it disappeared into sleep. "Just you. 'S enough."

If Warrick said anything in reply, Toreth didn't hear it. — Manna Francis

The man stands behind the man.
The seated man thinks,
"For heaven's sake, stop standing behind me.
You are driving me mad. It is February and it is impossible.
Someone has thrown onion skins all over the stairwell. Now I will have to clean them up - though I love to sweep. But still, it is disgusting."
But all he says is "I have to go soon."
Why can't people tell the truth?
It is impossible not to lie.
It is February and not lying is impossible. — Maira Kalman

Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. A second that is you, without memory or experience, the animal warm and waking into a brand new world. There is the sun dissolving the dark, and light as clear as music, filling the room where you sleep and the other rooms behind your eyes. — Jeanette Winterson

And we are giddy, because dawn is here, we're at the center of the world and we're at the center of our own universe, and spring is here, and the air smells wet and clean. God bless Manhattan, you know, because it must be six in the morning on a Sunday yet trash collection trucks are teeming down the street and Times Square workers in their bright-orange uniforms are cleaning up the night's excesses and not even the smell of fresh spring rain can completely wash away Eau de Times Square Urine/Trash/Vomit, but somehow this here, this now, it feels perfect. — Rachel Cohn

Everybody likes pizza! It's a quick and easy clean-up meal. — Buddy Valastro

It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things. — Stephane Mallarme

The world looks marvelous from up here, so peaceful, so wonderful and so fragile. Everybody, all of us down there, not only in Israel, have to keep it clean and good. — Ilan Ramon

If you want to clean up the environment, start with your mind. It starts there! — Byron Katie

My ears pricked at a sound from the bathroom, a familiar moan, and I shot up from the bed, racing to the door. Throwing it open, I froze at the sight of Gianna in the shower, with her hand between her legs. Oh, fuck no. Stalking over, I shoved the door open, snatched her wrist away, and used it to drag her up against my body. Bringing her fingers to my mouth, I licked them clean, eliciting another moan. Satisfied that I'd gotten all of her essence, I gripped both of her wrists and anchored them behind her back. "No one makes you come but me," I snarled. "Not even you. Those sounds, your moans and screams of pleasure, they belong to me, Gianna. They are mine and I will not share them." I stared at her with a hardened gaze, making sure my warning was clear. "If you need a release, you will come to me, or you will wait. Do you understand? — Fiona Davenport

I don't even want to think about all those dishes," Donny said. "Hey, now that I believe in demons and magic spells, who's going to tell me about little dish elves that come and clean your kitchen while you nap?"
"There is a class of fairy called Nibs that will do it. But they come with their own set of issues. It's never worth the hassle of summoning them," Varnie answered.
"I was totally kidding, but..." Donny eyed him suspiciously. "Wait, are you punking me? There really is no such thing as Nibs, is there?"
Varnie smiled noncommitally.
"Ame, is there sucha thing as Nibs?"
Amelia bit her lip to keep from laughing. "I've never heard of them, but that doesn't mean they don't exist."
"Amnesia boy?"
I held up my hand. "Yeah, sorry. Amnesia."
"You guys suck." She pouted. — Gwen Hayes

That old if you 'need anything, let me know,' is a total crock. You hear people say it all the time, but you never see anyone actually call up the person who said it and say, "Hey, remember when you said to let you know if i needed anything? Well, I'm feeling really overwhelmed. Could you please come clean my kitchen, I'd feel like I had a bit of a head start." You will never hear someone say that, because then the person asking the other person to clean their kitchen is seen as a helpless, incompetent dick. -Diana Rowland (My life as a white trash zombie) — Diana Rowland

The "through-and-through" universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity , with no possibilities; its relations, with no subjects, make me feel as if I had entered into a contract with no reserved rights ... It seems too buttoned-up and white-chokered and clean-shaven a thing to speak for the vast slow-breathing unconscious Kosmos with its dread abysses and its unknown tides. — William James

When you clean up a city, you destroy it. — Charles Bukowski

The spring is wound up tight. It will uncoil of itself. That is what is so convenient in tragedy. The least little turn of the wrist will do the job . . . The rest is automatic. You don't need to lift a finger. The machine is in perfect order; it has been oiled ever since time began, and it runs without friction . . . Tragedy is clean, it is restful, it is flawless . . . In a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and everyone's destiny is known. That makes for tranquility . . . Tragedy is restful; and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it. There isn't any hope. You're trapped. — Jean Anouilh

This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave. — Joss Whedon

Good lord, look at you!" he cried, delighted at my grubbiness. "What have you been doing? You're filthy!" He looked me up and down admiringly, then said in a more solemn tone: "You haven't been screwing hogs again, have you, Bryson?"
"Ha ha ha."
"They're not clean animals, you know, no matter how attractive they may look after a month on the trail. And don't forget we're not in Tennessee anymore. It's probably not even legal here - at least not without a note from the vet." He patted the chair beside him, beaming all over, happy with his quips. "Come and sit down and tell me all about it. So what was her name - Bossy?" He leaned closely and confidentially. "Did she squeal a lot? — Bill Bryson

When he brought it to me four years ago, Rodney King had just arrived, I was involved in the clean-up of L.A. and I guess it was part of my experience. — Kathryn Bigelow

My vagina's angry. It is. It's pissed off. My vagina's furious and it needs to talk. It needs to talk about all
this shit. It needs to talk to you. I mean what's the deal - an army of people out there thinking up ways to
torture my poor-ass, gentle, loving vagina. Spending their days constructing psycho products, and nasty
ideas to undermine my pussy. Vagina Motherfuckers.
All this shit they're constantly trying to shove up us, clean us up - stuff us up, make it go away. Well, my
vagina's not going away. It's pissed off and it's staying right here. Like tampons - what the hell is that? — Eve Ensler

Whenever I read stories of people doing huge pranks on set, all I think is, 'These people have too much time on their hands.' Besides, I don't want to make some poor assistant clean up someone's trailer after I've filled it with, say, Cadbury eggs. See? I can't even think of a good prank. — Amy Poehler

Another little-known favorite of mine takes some forethought in the early summer. We've all seen ox-eye daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum) in fields and on roadsides; maybe you even grow it in your garden. As long as you can properly identify it, and as long as you can pick some from a safe, pesticide-free area (without secreting it from your neighbor's garden, even if she does grow a ton), snag handfuls of blooms and dry them well before storing them in a clean, dry jar with a tight-fitting lid. When a stuffy nose comes along, make a mug of tea with a heaping teaspoon of dried blooms. In about 30 minutes or less, a stuffed nose will be clear, and it should stay that way effectively for 4 to 6 hours, same as any cold capsule -- without the side effects. This works best with swollen nasal passages or a drippy nose. Drink a cup of the tea up to 4 times a day. — Diane Kidman

I brought a coconut cream pie, Mom's favorite. Coconut's hard, dirty, shaggy exterior didn't promise much. But when you cracked it open and then cleaned it up, it surprised you with the smooth white riches inside. In a coconut shell, this was my mother's mission in life- to tackle the litter, the dust, the stains, the residue of life and tidy them all up. Her sweet reward was that exotic state of everything-in-its-clean-place, always a mirage in the distance while she was living with Helen. Coconut cream pie fed her soul. — Judith Fertig

(Ezekial saw the wheel
(Way up in the middle of the air
(O Ezekial saw the wheel
(Way in the middle of the air!
(Now the big wheel runs by faith
(And the little wheel runs by the grace of God
(The above made up by professional hope experts, you might say, because willful, voluntary, intentional hope was the only kind they had in anything like long supply. Faith is not, contrary to the usual ideas, something that turns out to be right or wrong, like a gambler's bet; it's an act, an intention, a project, something that makes you, in leaping into the future, go so far, far, far ahead that you shoot clean out of Time and right into Eternity, which is not the end of time or a whole lot of time or unending time, but timelessness, that old Eternal Now. So that you end up living not in the future ((in your intentional "act of faith")) but in the present. After all.
(Courage is willful hope.) — Joanna Russ

He had been a criminal, but he was also beautiful. I wasn't there to judge, only to make him clean and dressed him in his powder-blue polyester suit with the ruffled tuxedo shirt. Holding up his arm to wash it, I paused: I was comfortable. I wanted other people to know that they could do this too. The washing, the comfort. This confident, stable feeling was available to anyone, if society could overcome the burden of superstition. — Caitlin Doughty

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy-they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made.... — F Scott Fitzgerald

There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays. — Jodi Picoult

I believe a boy can have anything in life that he wants once he starts working for it. The main thing is not to give up. It makes no difference how tough things get, just bow your back, keep working, and put you heart and soul into it. As you go along your way, live a good clean life, don't hurt anyone or anything, and always be honest. It doesn't hurt to pray a little too. — Wilson Rawls

I let myself feel good for no reason. I let joy happen right there and then, and it's inside me and around me, it's the lights on the road ahead, the clean black of the night, the cold air coming through the window. It's like hearing a song for the first time and being struck by it, haunted by it, wanting to hunt it down and catch it, because the song sums up something you didn't know you wanted to say, giving you chills and goose bumps. But even as you find out what it's called, and you're thinking you'll download it, you've already lost. Because the feeling was right then and there and it's already fading like a dream.
You just have to see those times for what they are: a chance to look down at your life. And when you do, you see it's a skin made up of shiny little moments. — Kirsty Eagar

Once, I was dining at their home," Gil said. "My fork fell, and I began to bend down to pick it up. When she, the daughter, didn't hurry to bring me a clean fork, he slapped her, just like that, in the face. — Ronen Bergman

I'm glad that that era of stand-up is over, because I think it adversely affected a lot of people who could have been really, really great comedians. Because they unconsciously or subconsciously stifled their wild impulses, and were thinking about the five clean minutes for The Tonight Show, or the 20-minute sitcom pitch as a stand-up act. — Patton Oswalt

It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write. — Ernest Hemingway,

That's the thing about angry words - once you spill them out, they are like a broken jar of honey on the floor, all sticky and mess. And no matter how hard you try to clean it up, you can always feel that sticky part of the tile" -Cordie — Shelley Moore Thomas

we steady thud of wind with lungs that empty moon, fill it back up with shine, feed my feet to pig iron anklets biting flesh where i am link. i will break. bleed, crack. shatter. crush.
i'ma smash outta this choir, come up gasping new breath, my name burned clean, made mine — Tyehimba Jess

I return one last time to the places of death all around us, the places of slaughter to which, in a huge communal effort, we close our hearts. Each day a fresh holocaust, yet, as far as I can see, our moral being is untouched. We do not feel tainted. We can do anything, it seems, and come away clean.
We point to the Germans and Poles and Ukrainians who did and did not know of the atrocities around them. We like to think they were inwardly marked by the after-effects of that special form of ignorance. We like to think that in their nightmares the ones whose suffering they had refused to enter came back to haunt them. We like to think they woke up haggard in the mornings and died of gnawing cancers. But probably it was not so. The evidence points in the opposite direction: that we can do anything and get away with it; that there is no punishment. — J.M. Coetzee

In books or movies, people were either whisked away to a magical land in the clothes they were standing up in, or they glossed over the packing part entirely. Simon now felt he had been robbed of critical information by the media. Should he be putting the kitchen knives in his bag? Should he bring the toaster and rig it up as a weapon? Simon did neither of those things. Instead, he went with the safe option: clean underwear and hilarious T-shirts. Shadowhunters had to love hilarious T-shirts, right? Everyone loved hilarious T-shirts. — Cassandra Clare

The press has the power to stimulate people to clean up the environment prevent nuclear proliferation force crooked politicians out of office reduce poverty provide quality health care
for all people and even to save the lives of millions of people as it did in Ethiopia in 1984. But instead we are using it to promote sex violence and sensationalism and to line the pockets of already wealthy media moguls.'
Dr Carl Jensen founder of Project Censored — Ian Hargreaves

Max was fascinated by the woman and more than a little curious about what she might be up to. Sarah Johnson had come from a two-parent, affluent home with a squeaky-clean past. She'd been the golden girl, high school cheerleader, valedictorian and had apparently glided through college without making a ripple, coming out with a bachelor of arts degree in literature. She'd married well, had six children and then one winter night, for some unknown reason, she'd driven her car into the Yellowstone River. Her body was never found. Because there were no skid marks on the highway, it had looked like a suicide. Foul play had never been suspected.
That was twenty-two years ago. Now she was back - with no memory of those years or why she'd apparently tried to take her own life.
Max wanted this story more than he wanted a hot cup of coffee this morning. — B. J. Daniels

It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush, it may take another Clinton to clean up after the second one — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Are you waiting for the end of my story? It's ended. The day came when I was able to fly up here. I knew by then that I had much more to learn, and that I had to be stronger before I tried Crossing. But I felt I'd come more than halfway, too, and I was right. There was a corroded metal hatch over that window then. I tore it off and let it fall. When I'd explored all the rooms on all the levels, I decided to clean this one out and make it a private place just for myself, my own room in my own tower in the sky. There were bones in here and some other things, but I threw them out that window and swept this floor with my hands. When everything was tidy, I told myself I'd come back and spend hours up here after I'd made the Return Crossing, just thinking about who I was and what I had done for my children. But I never did, till now." "I'll — Gene Wolfe

A lot of times you'll hear bands and it's a different sound coming out than what's on stage. Because you can clean it up through a PA and make it sound completely different than what they really sound like. — Angus Young