Cleaning People Out Quotes & Sayings

I had a Saturday job in a chemist. The pay was something ridiculous like £2 an hour - it was slave labour - and I spent all day cleaning shelves. On my first day an actress from Eldorado, which was on telly at the time, came in and said, 'Can I have some Replense please?' I didn't know what it was, so I had to ask her and she had to say, 'It's vaginal moisturiser,' in front of a massive queue of people. After one day I was like, 'I don't want to do this job any more, it's just boring.' — Konnie Huq

In all honesty, men changed a few rules when they became what was referred to as househusbands. Bill didn't make beds, cook, dust, do laundry, windows or floors, or give birth. What he did do was pay bills, call people to fix the plumbing, handle the investments and taxes, volunteer big time, take papers to the garage, change license plates, get the cars serviced, and pick up the cleaning. If women had had that kind of schedule, who knows, we'd probably still be in the home. — Erma Bombeck

That awful cockroach story! The mother chasing her own son away with a broom. Horrible. I was cleaning obsessively for days. Is that typical of this Monsieur Kafka?" "You've summed it up well, Madame. Some people have to study it for decades to get the meaning. — Nina George

People, her people at least, were always chasing shattered hopes. A father gazing down on dead soil, with a brood of hollow-cheeked children sitting around a barren table. A lonely maid cleaning grates and waiting for a lover who by now wouldn't even recall her name. A weary labourer trudging miles between the hiring fairs, carrying his spade, clothes soiled from sleeping in damp fields. They held candles to storms, her people. They saw their lights extinguished as cruel winds of fate blew. — Paul Reid

If we took over Britain, then we'd have the job of cleaning up the bourgeoisie and keeping people in a revolutionary state of mind. — John Lennon

I feel like a house-elf," grumbled Ron [general cleaning of Black's house]
"Well, now that you understand what dreadful lives they lead, perhaps you'll be a bit more active in S.P.E.W!"
...
"You know, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to show people exactly how horrible it is to clean all the time
we could do a sponsored scrub of Gryffindor common room, all proceeds to S.P.E.W, it would raise awareness as well as funds
"
"I'll sponsor you to shut up about spew," Ron muttered irritably. — J.K. Rowling

Some people may find material chores irksome; they would prefer to use their time to talk and be with others. They haven't yet realized that the thousand and one small things that have to be done each day, the cycle of dirtying and cleaning, were given by God to enable us to communicate through matter. . . . We are all called to do, not extraordinary things, but very ordinary things, with an extraordinary love that flows from the heart of God.

. . . A community which has a sense of work done well, quietly and lovingly, humbly and without fuss, can become a community where the presence of God is profoundly lived. . . . So the community will take on a whole contemplative dimension. — Jean Vanier

And now this talk of bringing the UN back into the picture.
But that old UN girl - it turns out that she just ain't what she was cracked up to be. She's been demoted (although she retains her high salary). Now she's the world's janitor. She's the Filipino cleaning lady, the Indian jamardini, the postal bride from Thailand, the Mexican household help, the Jamaican au pair. She's employed to clean other people's shit. She's used and abused at will. — Arundhati Roy

Mostly, though, he made people laugh, with wicked impersonations of everyone around him: clients, lawyers, clerks, even the cleaning woman. When Pickwick Papers came out, his former colleagues realized that half of them had turned up in its pages. His eyes - eyes that everyone who ever met him, to the day he died, remarked on - beautiful, animated, warm, dreamy, flashing, sparkling - though no two people ever agreed on their colour - were they grey, green, blue, brown? - those eyes missed nothing, any more than did his ears. He could imitate anyone. Brimming over with an all but uncontainable energy, which the twenty-first century might suspiciously describe as manic, he discharged his superplus of vitality by incessantly walking the streets, learning London as he went, mastering it, memorizing the names of the roads, the local accents, noting the characteristic topographies of the many villages of which the city still consisted. — Simon Callow

Conditional love is love that is turned off and on ... Some parents only show their love after a child has done something that pleases them. "I love you, honey, for cleaning your room!" Children who think they need to earn love become people pleasers, or perfectionists. Those who are raised on conditional love never really feel loved. — Louise Hart

Having been in a relationship since I was 18, I'm very domestic, but I don't enjoy cooking for myself. I don't mind cooking for other people. But I don't like cleaning or washing dishes, although I don't mind doing laundry. — Megan Fox

A lot of people approach their barn or horse like they are going to war, because it's been going badly. So you pick up the next day in a defensive mode instead of cleaning the slate and starting fresh. Animals live so much in the moment, so if you're bringing baggage from yesterday you're already at a loss. We do that with people too. — Cindy Meehl

On the Baseball Steroids Scandal People are surprised Mark McGwire did steroids? Look at him! He looks like they should have him in a stall on display at the fair with some poor son of a bitch cleaning up his shit. — Justin Halpern

Oh, I just think that a neat house is the sign of a boring person, that's all. And I don't really like to associate with boring people if I can help it. — Katie Kacvinsky

Some people save appliance boxes because they think they will get more money for the items if they ever sell them. But if you consider the rent you pay, turning your space into a storage shed for empty boxes, that probably costs you more than you would earn selling an appliance in a box. — Marie Kondo

I've learned how to be open and bold about my faith, but in terms of my influence, I just try to lead in a godly way. What that means for me is to serve them, whether it's just doing the dirty work, like cleaning up sweat on the floor, or deferring to other people, or carrying equipment bags. — Jeremy Lin

So endgames are naturally messy.

They may not be very dynamic, but when an active war is shutting down, there is still a lot of cleaning up to do. It may sound grim, but that's what it looks like. There are broken things everywhere, wounds and corpses, general messiness. Things collapsing due to zemblanity forces that have been set in motion but are too large to control. — Venkatesh G. Rao

The majority of what calls itself Christianity today is a circus. You've got a bunch of people chasing health, wealth, prosperity; chasing a good time, chasing the social club, chasing where the action's happening, chasing the good music and the good times. But few people are out there chasing God, and truly going hard after Him, and truly making the sacrifices in their life and cleaning their hands in such a way and working to have a pure heart that they might actually ascend that hill of the Lord and they might actually commune with God in a way that few people do and few people know about. — Tim Conway

Why do elites hate the poor? It's xenophobia. They don't know any poor people - except their off-the-books Brazilian nanny and illegal immigrant cleaning lady from Upper Revolta who don't speak English. — P. J. O'Rourke

My parents taught me many of the things that people need in life to feel confident: practical things, such as managing finances, mucking out the goat barn, cleaning a house, doing repairs, mending a broken roof or a toilet. — Bryce Dallas Howard

Progressives make money and spend money on businesses that meet needs instead of kill people! The future is in meeting needs - unto the bourgeois business of cleaning the drapes! - not spewing death and destruction with kickbacks. — Mimi Kennedy

I would let her ... have adventures. I would let her ... choose her path. It would be hard ... it was hard ... but I would do it. Oh, not completely, of course. Some things have to go on. Cleaning one's teeth, arithmetic. But Maia fell in love with the Amazon. It happens. THe place was for her - and the people. Of course there was some danger, but there is danger everywhere. Two years ago, in this school, there was an outbreak of typhus, and three girls died. CHildren are knocked down and killed by horses every week, here in these streets
" She broke off, gathering her thoughts. "When she was traveling and exploring ... and finding her songs, Maia wasn't just happy, she was ... herself. I think something broke in Maia when her parents died, and out there it healed. Perhaps I'm mad
and the professor too
but I think children must lead big lives ... if it is in them to do so. — Eva Ibbotson

Like you, I'm figuring out how to walk with Christ into my day, into Target, into church, into the kitchen, and most importantly, into the lives of other people. Christ doesn't stop being relevant just because I'm standing at my sink, cleaning out my closet, meeting over coffee, driving to the bank. — Emily P. Freeman

Life was a series of messes, and one spent one's time cleaning them up; if one had any heart at all one also gave a part of one's time to cleaning up those of other people. — Phyllis Bottome

When you ask people about what they enjoy doing, time spent with the boss is even worse than time spent cleaning the house. So this suggests that there are a lot of leaders out there who are not doing an adequate job. — Tom Rath

It's hard not to hate. People, things, institutions. When they break your spirit and take pleasure in watching you bleed, hate is the only feeling that makes sense. That's what I need to tell you. To let you know how hard I'm trying not to cave under the weight of all the awful things I feel in my heart. When I look at my day, I realize most of it was spent cleaning up the damage of the day before. In that life I have no future. All I have is distraction and remorse. — J-Ax

Stockholders are used to a certain kind of global capitalism. This version is very hard on the environment and very hard on people below a certain fiscal level. It is a calculated, systematic weakening of people. Many labour, a few benefit. Try talking about cleaning up the place with these people. The hostility is incredible. — Henry Rollins

Can we really expect adequate funding for programs to clean up our environment and care for people's basic needs as long as the socially essential work of caretaking and cleaning is relegated to women for little or no pay? — Riane Eisler

Be very professional because it will get you a lot further. You have to treat people with the same respect whether they're signing your checks or cleaning up after you. — Raven-Symone

This perception of fairness - that one set of rules applies to players big and small - has been entirely missing from our collective responses to climate change thus far. For decades, regular people have been asked to turn off their lights, put on sweaters, and pay premium prices for nontoxic cleaning products and renewable energy - and then watched as the biggest polluters have been allowed to expand their emissions without penalty. — Naomi Klein

And that is true in 85 percent of kids; it's kids who live in old, dilapidated, mostly urban housing. But that still leaves 15 percent of the cases that occur in middle- or upper-class families, usually associated with home renovations. People are sanding paint, removing banisters, cleaning up windowsills, and they don't realize that they're spewing lead dust around in the house. And then the kids get it. — Deirdre Imus

You don't need fashion designers when you are young. Have faith in your own bad taste. Buy the cheapest thing in your local thrift shop - the clothes that are freshly out of style with even the hippest people a few years older than you. Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents - that is the key to fashion leadership. Ill-fitting is always stylish. But be more creative - wear your clothes inside out, backward, upside down. Throw bleach in a load of colored laundry. Follow the exact opposite of the dry cleaning instructions inside the clothes that cost the most in your thrift shop. Don't wear jewelry - stick Band-Aids on your wrists or make a necklace out of them. Wear Scotch tape on the side of your face like a bad face-lift attempt. Mismatch your shoes. Best yet, do as Mink Stole used to do: go to the thrift store the day after Halloween, when the children's trick-or-treat costumes are on sale, buy one, and wear it as your uniform of defiance. — John Waters

She was a woman with a broom or a dust-
pan or a washrag or a mixing spoon in her hand. You saw
her cutting piecrust in the morning, humming to it, or you
saw her setting out the baked pies at noon or taking them in,
cool, at dusk. She rang porcelain cups like a Swiss bell ringer
to their place. She glided through the halls as steadily as a
vacuum machine, seeking, finding, and setting to rights. She
made mirrors of every window, to catch the sun. She strolled
but twice through any garden, trowel in hand, and the flowers
raised their quivering fires upon the warm air in her wake.
She slept quietly and turned no more than three times in a
night, as relaxed as a White glove to which, at dawn, a brisk
hand will return. Waking, she touched people like pictures,
to set their frames straight. — Ray Bradbury

The first years were spent in cleaning Muriel, in reconciling herself to her existence. Evelyn wanted to be alone in the house; the house filled up, more than she had dreaded. After some time, Muriel began to appear sufficiently normal to be sent to school, but Evelyn was well are that she was concealing her true nature. She spoke now more like other people, though she was still both clipped and sententious. At first she had said, 'Mother, Mother,' and Evelyn thought it was 'Murder' she had called out in the dark. — Hilary Mantel

They don't let many black people in the governor's mansion in Alabama, unless they're cleaning. — Charles Barkley

That's right, I am the unenthusiastic girl people avoid making eye contact with when they buy their spank mags and twelve-inch rubber cocks. I'm the one in full HAZMAT gear cleaning up the "accidental" shot spots they leave behind in one of our twenty-five cent porn booths. For what it's worth, there's a reason I don't fill in the glory holes, they all think they're so sneaky, getting their dick sucked by some anonymous stranger on the other side. I see it as less clean up, let the cock sucking stranger slurp up their spunk. It saves me running a disinfectant wipe along the wall, hoping that none of it touches any part of me. So keep up the good work anonymous strangers, keep gobbling cock and making my life easier. If you want, leave your address at the store and I'll add you to my fucking Christmas card list. — Jaden Wilkes

It would be nice if life weren't so messy, but that's just not the nature of things; we want things to be perfect, but most of the time we just spend our existence cleaning up the messes we make - and sometimes the messes of other people, people about whom we care most in the world. — Craig Johnson

And it's beyond my energy to explain why I don't think that four-letter word that everyone's so obsessed over and that gets everyone into so much trouble and pretty much makes everyone behave like an ass can live in a place like this. Somewhere during dry cleaning, details, and missed meals, it flakes away and what you're left with is married people with a tolerable affinity for each other. That little four-letter word can exist only in poetry, or movies of 2 to 3 hours in length. Maybe in a mini-series.
This place of dull details and irksome obligations is a home only to other four-letter words, which are used much more frequently. — Kendare Blake

According to Hugh Thomas, author of 'A History of the World', the greatest medical advance in history has been garbage collection. The greatest psychological advance in history is just around the corner and will also have to do with cleaning up. Cleaning up lies and "coming out of the closet" is getting more attention these days. Some day we will look back on these years of suffocation in bullsh*t in the same way we look back on all the years people lived in, and died from, their garbage. — Brad Blanton

It's no accident that most ads are pitched to people in their 20s and 30s. Not only are they so much cuter than their elders...but they are less likely to have gone through the transformative process of cleaning out their deceased parents' stuff. Once you go through that, you can never look at *your* stuff in the same way. You start to look at your stuff a little postmortemistically. If you've lived more than two decades as an adult consumer, you probably have quite the accumulation, even if you're not a hoarder...I'm not saying I never buy stuff, because I absolutely do. Maybe I'm less naive about the joys of accumulation. — Roz Chast

I started at an agency called Intertalent. You copy scripts, you pick up people's dry cleaning, you take their dogs to the vet, you deliver packages, you do whatever they want you to do. — Patrick Whitesell

I sighed. Sometimes, killing people just wasn't worth cleaning up the mess afterward. — Jennifer Estep

People ask me why I don't paint oils. It takes too long. Cleaning brushes in linseed oil, and it takes six months to really dry, and all this. I don't have that kind of time. I work with acrylic. It's water based. You can clean it under water. If you spill it on yourself, you just throw it in the washing machine. — Grace Slick

I've always thought that the President could do so much here to help change images. If the President would go into a public bathroom in the Capitol, and have the TV cameras film him cleaning the toilets and saying 'Why not? Somebody's got to do it!' then that would do so much for the morale of the people who do the wonderful job of keeping the toilets clean. I mean, it is a wonderful thing that they're doing. — Andy Warhol

I don't like cleaning or dusting or cooking or doing dishes, or any of those things," I explained to her. "And I don't usually do it. I find it boring, you see."
"Everyone has to do those things," she said.
"Rich people don't," I pointed out.
Juniper laughed, as she often did at things I said in those early days, but at once became quite serious.
"They miss a lot of fun," she said. "But quite apart from that
keeping yourself clean, preparing the food you are going to eat, clearing it away afterward
that's what life's about, Wise Child. When people forget that, or lose touch with it, then they lose touch with other important things as well."
"Men don't do those things."
"Exactly. Also, as you clean the house up, it gives you time to tidy yourself up inside
you'll see. — Monica Furlong

I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives. — Molly Ivins

Working in a store and being a shop assistant, if you don't know what to do and you like fashion, I think it's a great way of getting into the business because you do windows, cleaning, and everything. That was my school for two years, working in a shop, and that's how I met people in magazines and designers. — Nicola Formichetti

When cleaning I do it the way people go to church - not so much to discover anything new, although I'm alert for new things, but mainly to reacquaint myself with the familiar. It's nice to go over familiar paths. — Robert M. Pirsig

I'm very domestic; I love cleaning. I love cooking. I like waiting on people. I just like to make things. I don't break that down to be weakness, or the only things women can do, or putting me back 20 years. — Amy Sedaris

My mother's family is passionate about visiting and cleaning the graves of their deceased. Once a year, the Peeks and the Nolens would gather to clean the tombstones and plant flowers at the grave sites of their people. Once, in Piedmont, when I was a little boy, I was helping to clean a grave of an ancestor of my grandfather named Jerry Mire Peek. When I asked my cousin Clyde whom this unknown relation was named after, he said, He was named after the prophet Jerry Mire. — Pat Conroy

People were like machines. They broke down. They rattled. They could burn you or maim you if you weren't careful. Her job was not only to figure out why this happened and who was to blame, but also to listen for the signs of it coming. Being sheriff, like being a mechanic, was as much the fine art of preventive maintenance as it was the cleaning up after a breakdown. — Hugh Howey

Do you want me to reschedule, or can you move to your bedroom? I generally frown on cleaning around people while they're having sex. All sorts of potential OSHA violations. — Joanna Wylde

God's purpose for my life resided not so much in what I did as in how I did it. It didn't matter whether God gave me a large role or a tiny one; I could still have impact if I could learn to do one thing - to love people in whatever circumstance I found myself. Why? Because love lasts. Because love never fails. Because love does not envy, and it never boasts. It is neither proud nor rude. Love is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes. Love never gives up. God is love. Love, in fact, is the hardest, most powerful thing in the world. Whether driving a child to school, leading a church, cleaning a bathroom, heading up a multinational corporation, or washing feet, love is the secret to making a lasting impact. — Ann Spangler

64. Surprising and Distressing Things
While one is cleaning a decorative comb, something catches in the teeth and the comb breaks.
A carriage overturns. One would have imagined that such a solid, bulky object would remain forever on its wheels. It all seems like a dream
astonishing and senseless.
A child or grown-up blurts out something that is bound to make people uncomfortable.
All night long one has been waiting for a man who one thought was sure to arrive. At dawn, just when one has forgotten about him for a moment and dozed off, a crow caws loudly. One wakes up with a start and sees that it is daytime
most astonishing.
One of the bowmen in an archery contest stands trembling for a long time before shooting; when finally he does release his arrow, it goes in the wrong direction. — Sei Shonagon

When you are converted, you want to do what you didn't want to do before, and you don't want to do what you wanted to do before. There's a change in the heart; there's a cleaning up, a change in orientation, and holiness becomes attractive, instead of something you have to put up with to figure out what you can get away with. As long as young people are asking, 'Can I get away with this?' or 'Can I get away with that?' I wonder if they're regenerate. If they're asking, instead, 'How can I grow in holiness?' then I suspect they've begun to understand. — D. A. Carson

Everywhere I've been, from South Africa to Brazil, people are connected to it. For me, art is a way to bring people together. You can put people on the same level, the perception is the same. You can bring a worker, like a cleaning guy, or the richest guy on earth, and they will have the same feeling or they would be able to feel the same. — EL Seed

The House Rules Committee is perhaps the free world's outstanding bureaucratic abomination - a tiny, airless closet deep in the labyrinth of the Capitol where some of the very meanest people on earth spend their days cleaning democracy like a fish. — Matt Taibbi

Besides.
Eternity was going to seem like forever.
With the crowds of smiling people smiling at me in the dark, me who spent my life cleaning bathrooms and mowing the lawn, I told myself, why rush anything?
I'd backslid before, I'd backslide again. Practice makes perfect.
If you could call it that.
I figured, a few more sins would help round out my resume.
This is the upside of already being eternally damned.
I figured, Hell could wait. — Chuck Palahniuk

Foaming is a huge reward," said Sinclair, the brand manager. "Shampoo doesn't have to foam, but we add foaming chemicals because people expect it each time they wash their hair. Same thing with laundry detergent. And toothpaste - now every company adds sodium laureth sulfate to make toothpaste foam more. There's no cleaning benefit, but people feel better when there's a bunch of suds around their mouth. Once the customer starts expecting that foam, the habit starts growing. — Charles Duhigg

My mother came here to New York. She and my grandmother were domestics, cooking, cleaning for other people. — David Dinkins

Our hearts bear a similarity with storerooms.
We hold in them our trampled convictions, our fears, suppressed acts of valor, disappointments, enmity, anguish, secrets, things we wish we should have done, things we wish we shouldn't have, regret.
And continue piling them up with emotions, memories, conversations which did happen and conversations which didn't, soured relationships and bitter people all of which we should have discarded, we keep it within until there is no space left, until the room is full, occupied after which we go on to lock it.
Once in a while we happen to open the room and sight the dust accumulated all over, we relive each moment, each memory and each emotion again and soon fall upon the realization as to how deeply the room is in need of cleaning and so we clean it.
We clean it so that we can fill it once more, hold it, bear it, relish it, heal from it and then finally let it go. — Chirag Tulsiani

Yet the need for justifying the wealth and power of great corporations in the eyes of the people has never been greater. Why not hark back to Florence, Venice, Antwerp and Amsterdam? The great corporations could devote wealth and energies to cleaning up, improving and adorning our cities. Each large corporation might adopt a city and vie with other corporations to see whose city shines brightest. In the center of each financial district there should be a large plaza in which periodically poets, singers, storytellers and artists of every sort would compete for rich prizes. The corporations should see it as their duty to spot and encourage talent, and celebrate greatness. There should be social intimacy between the powerful and the creative. — Eric Hoffer

It's some twisted, limited, grocery-store mentality, where people have to be dairy products or vegetables or frozen foods for us to be able to understand them and feel safe. Maybe we've just become such mega-consumers that we can't deal with anything that's slightly inconvenient (basically, anything that requires thought). I was the tofu amidst the Baking Products and Cleaning Supplies. (pg. 71) — Deb Caletti

As long as you are forced to be a woman first instead of a person, by default, you need to be a feminist. That's it. Men are people, women are women? Screw that. Screw that. I am sick of having words aimed to shut me up. I am sick of having to be anything other than a person first. Zounds! I enjoy being a girl, whatever that means. For me, that meant Star Wars figurines, mounds of books, skirts and flats. It meant Civil War reenacting and best girlfriends I'd give a kidney to and best guy friends I'd ruin a liver with and making messes and cleaning up some of them and still not knowing how to apply eye shadow. That's being a girl. That's being a person. It's the same damn thing. I wish Rush had just called me an idiot. I'm happy to be called an idiot! On the day when someone on the Internet calls me an idiot first and ugly second, I will set down my feminist battle flag and heave a great sigh. Then I will pick it back up and keep climbing. There are many more mountains to overcome. — Alexandra Petri