Contemporary Western Quotes & Sayings

You're pretty low maintenance, as women go."
"I am, am I?" She sounded amused.
"Yeah. Like a cactus. — Roxanne Snopek

Boy oh boy, this man is trouble. He was slowly tearing down the wall she'd built around her heart, brick by brick. Could any man be this perfect? He must have some faults. Maybe he is a chauvinist pig ... no, doesn't seem like it. He is kind to animals and children, he is a fireman, he looks like sex on a stick. What could be wrong with him? Maybe he snores. Oh, wouldn't I like to find out? — Tamara Hoffa

Our conceptual maps tend to lack a way to conceive the immanence of violence and power in the ideals and practices that have become dominant in the Western tradition. Mass death has tended to be conceived as something accidental, something outside the ordinary run of events. I think the difficulty in coming to terms with the peculiarities of the Western will to power has to do with the absence of a central metaphor capable of describing the link between consumption and death. The consumptive mentality has in many respects been normalized, as has the violence that underpins and is the effect of systems of universal judgment. Certainly the aestheticization of difference is coextensive with the romance with violence that has become so characteristic of contemporary Western society. — Deborah Root

Once in rur-al Flathead coun-ty
Stood a cru-wel Christmas scene
Dumped for slaugh-ter were the rein-deer
When an elf did intervene. — Roxanne Snopek

The hand at her back stroked up and down. Never straying too far south, but igniting a fire inside her that she wanted this fireman to stoke instead of extinguish — Tamara Hoffa

I'm resourceful," she called after him.
Resourceful, he thought, rinsing his hands with the ladle she'd left in the bucket. "A euphemism commonly used by successful criminals," he called out to her.
"If I were so successful," she called back, "I wouldn't be talking to you. — Roxanne Snopek

It's hot enough to make a woman want to go skinny-dippin' in the Red River. You want to join me to cool off? — Carolyn Brown

She looked up and their eyes locked. "Want to be my birthday present?" she asked in a breathy whisper.
Chase's mother didn't raise any fools. He released her hips and trailed his hand down her arm until their fingers entwined.
"Let's get out of here."
He tugged her from the dance floor, trying not to rush like he was running from a fire. But, damn. There was a fire in his britches. — Tamara Hoffa

Sometimes you've got to get a machete and hack your way through the kudzu to make your own path in life. — Carolyn Brown

Damn, she better get her imagination under control or she was going to be in trouble. She stole another glance in his direction, her eyes locked onto the bulge in his lap. Well lookie there. Maybe I'm not the only one having carnal thoughts — Tamara Hoffa

First of all, I'm not a 'military type.' Second, I never proclaimed to be a gentleman of any kind. I just like the facts straight up. There's no bullshit to wade through to get to the truth." Dylan — Sara Walter Ellwood

Our contemporary Western society, in spite of its material, intellectual and political progress, is increasingly less conducive to mental health, and tends to undermine the inner security, happiness, reason and the capacity for love in the individual; it tends to turn him into an automaton who pays for his human failure with increasing mental sickness, and with despair hidden under a frantic drive for work and so called pleasure. — Erich Fromm

Last month, I didn't even have the prospect of a relationship. Now I've got one cowboy too many, she said. — Carolyn Brown

She pulled her arm free from his grasp and stood back, her arms crossed. "So, what then? You're holding me hostage? Are you even really a sheriff?"
"I am," he said, highly amused at her attempt at bravado. "You wanna see my badge? — Roxanne Snopek

There," he said with a smirk. "Now I don't have a swim suit either."
Andi bit her bottom lip and felt the heat begin to flood her cheeks. The sharp pinch on her arm snapped her out of her trance and she quickly swatted at the bug. "Okay, okay. Turn around and don't peak." The light from the moon made it easy for her to see his questioning glare. "What?"
"Turn around?" Zane asked, trying to hold back a smile. "Need I remind you that I've seen you naked before, Miss Ford." - Zane and Andi in, Zane: The McKades of Texas — Kimberly Lewis

I'm named after my father, Rudolph," he said, then shot her a stern look. "But if you connect that with my red nose -- — Roxanne Snopek

Snuggle up with a hot fireman! Meet Tanner West.
Sharon looked up into the most gorgeous face she had ever seen. Eyes like dark chocolate, deep and warm, stared out at her from a face that looked like it could have been chiseled in stone. Skin the color of burnished copper, high cheekbones, a sharp nose, full lips, and a cleft chin. How the hell had she failed to notice him before? Her heart skipped a beat and she ran her gaze down the rest of his body. He was tall, well over six feet, she would guess, with broad shoulders that tapered into a trim waist. His thighs, encased in worn denim, fit like a second skin against legs the size of tree trunks, and oh my, what lay between those thighs ... Her attention snapped back to his face and she could feel the heat of a blush suffuse her skin. — Tamara Hoffa

She loved her son and wanted him to make a fresh start here. Her ex-husband always tried to pass Aaron off as normal, not wanting anyone to know his son was different. She wasn't going to go down that road. — Tamara Hoffa

...the modern bias in contemporary Western scholarship (which has spread to the rest of the world as well) insists upon focusing all attention on the formation of the modern world and 'modernity.' By directing attention to a time period rather than to a region, Western scholars can place the West at the center of any discussion, and subordinate backward Asia to Western history, without explicitly condemning Asian cultures and polities or arguing for a narrowly Eurocentric view of the world. Nevertheless, modern history is effectively a racist pursuit that not only elevates white Westerners above all others, but also actively denigrates Asian history. — Peter A. Lorge

A society which believes in a worthwhile future saves in the present so as to invest in the future. Contemporary Western society spends in the present and piles up debts for the future, ravages the environment, and leaves its grandchildren to cope with the results as best they can. — Lesslie Newbigin

What kind of woman am I?" she asked.
"My kind." He grinned. — Carolyn Brown

Imagine looking back from a vantage point of one thousand years in the future, retrospectively evaluating our current, "sophisticated" medical and scientific procedures. One might see today's physician waving laser beams over a patient's body as a primitive, archaic, and incomprehensible healing technique, just as from some perspectives a medicine woman waving eagle feathers, or a curandera holding a crucifix over a patient, is viewed by some as archaic. The similarities are striking and compelling. Future generations may lose touch with the major assumptions underpinning contemporary western medicine, just as many of us have now lost touch with the assumptions integral to older cultures that continue to practice the ancient healing ways. Forgetting the assumptions on which a procedure is based may make the procedure incomprehensible, but it does not make it invalid. — H. Henrietta Stockel

Fucking hell," he whispered, closing his eyes. The pain in his face mirrored the deep ache in her bones. He lifted her hand to his mouth and traced his lips slowly across her palm. With incredible gentleness, he pulled her arm toward him and pressed a warm kiss to the pulse on her wrist, his breath washing over the delicate skin and casting a spell as bottomless and dark as shame. — Mia Hopkins

Our culture tends "to regard the mere energy of impulse as being in every mental and moral way equivalent and even superior to defined intention." Instead we should consider "an idea that once was salient in western culture: the idea of "making a life", by which was meant conceiving human existence, one's own or another's, as if it were a work of art upon which one might pass judgment ... This desire to fashion, to shape, a self and a life has all but gone from a contemporary culture whose emphasis, paradoxically enough, is so much on self. — Lionel Trilling

Certainly If John moschos where to come back today it is likely that he would find much more than that was familiar and the practices of a modern Muslim Sufi then he would with those of, say, a contemporary American evangelical. Yet the simple truth has been lost by our tendency to think of Christianity as a western religion rather than the Oriental faith it actually is. Moreover the modern demonization of Islam in the west, and the recent growth of Muslim fundamentalism (itself in many ways a reaction to the West's repeated humiliation of the Muslim world), have led to an atmosphere where few are aware of, or indeed wish to be aware of, the profound kinship of Christianity and Islam. — William Dalrymple

Life's too short to say no when love shows up at your door. — Roxanne Snopek

One more salt to try," Kellan said, reaching into the box. He brought a jar of black, flaky crystals up to the light. "Black diamond finishing salt. Extremely rare and too bold for those with meek palates. But, for a true connoisseur, the flavor is incomparable." He lowered her head and torso to the ground and pushed her sweater up to expose her stomach and ribs. "I want to sample it on your skin. — Melissa Cutler

Horses ... horses made me happy, complete. Then and there in the middle of some state, in a wild state of being, I vowed I would own a horse again. — Carly Kade

Mistletoe was her new favorite holiday decoration. She would have to hang some in the kitchen. All over the house. And keep the green stuff hanging until Easter. Or Thanksgiving. — Melissa McClone

She always thought of Aaron as special not less. He was God's gift to her, and she wouldn't trade him for the world. — Tamara Hoffa

As if it were the equal of Western classical or art music. The recordings were given respect, thoughtful presentation, and technical attention that was all too rare for non-Western music. I had grown up on Folkways's Nonesuch field recordings and the stuff Lomax had done for the Library of Congress, but the production values on the Ocora releases were on a whole other level. Eno and I realized that music from elsewhere didn't need to sound distant, scratchy, or "primitive." These recordings were as well produced as any contemporary recording in any genre. You were made to feel, for example, that this music wasn't a ghostly remnant from some lost culture, soon — David Byrne

Shamanism explores an area that contemporary Western science knows little about- the mind. — Jonathon Miller Weisberger

Great. He had a ranch with no power, a burgeoning blizzard, animals depending on him and now, a frightened, felonious elf to look after. — Roxanne Snopek

Now listen to the first three aims of the corporatist movement in Germany, Italy and France during the 1920s. These were developed by the people who went on to become part of the Fascist experience:
(1) shift power directly to economic and social interest groups;
(2) push entrepreneurial initiative in areas normally reserved for public bodies;
(3) obliterate the boundaries between public and private interest
that is, challenge the idea of the public interest.
This sounds like the official program of most contemporary Western governments. — John Ralston Saul

I think of it like a caterpillar
a wrinkly, ugly worm with traces of dull colors on it. But when the worm metamorphoses, it becomes something truly beautiful. Charli — Sara Walter Ellwood

Jase opened his door, stepped down, and leaned into her window. "Hungry?"
Taking a big breath didn't help when his sexy scent of cologne had hit her in the face. Hallelujah. "Yeah, I'm getting there."
"Let's go. The cowboy just came to take you away." He reached in and turned off the ignition, clasped her keys and opened the door. When she stepped out, he didn't bother to move back any and they were close. This man was hot and not only his temperature. Whatever kind of chemistry radiated off him, soaked right into her. — Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

Lovemaking is more than sex, it's a connecting of hearts, meeting of minds, & touching of souls." ~ Dr. Scott Hensley — Pamela S. Thibodeaux

She was licking something off the end of a wooden spoon. Red froze. His body reacted as if he'd walked in on her twirling half-naked on a pole....
Frankie was intriguing. Unsettling. Challenging He wanted to figure her out. He wanted to play strip poker with her. He wanted to throw her on the couch and ---
"A touch more oregano, I think." Frankie pointed the spoon at him. — Roxanne Snopek

Let's just say Noah and Flynn enjoy the chase, and when they catch their woman, they keep her tied so she stays caught when they play. — Fiona Archer

She was partial to the tie. Not too long ago he did unspeakable things to her with that tie. — Melissa Cutler

One of the most highly developed skills in contemporary Western civilization is dissection: the split -up of problems into their smallest possible components. We are good at it. So good, we often forget to put the pieces back together again. — Alvin Toffler

I hope you brought your handcuffs," she added. "I won't go quietly."
"I might use them anyway, for fun," he answered, remembering the sensation of her warm lips against his. — Roxanne Snopek

It's nothing fancy, I opened a jar of sauce and cooked the linguine. But there's fresh Parmesan and I even found a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon."
"You found wine." Earlier he'd been thinking about microwaved Who Hash, solitude and if he was very lucky, beer.
But a hot, fresh-cooked meal? Candles? Wine? And a chatty yoga-elf chef? With a body like a Las Vegas showgirl? — Roxanne Snopek

Also in contemporary Western society the union with the group is the prevalent way of overcoming separateness. It is a union which the individual self disappears to a large extent, and where the aim is to belong to the heard. If I am like everybody else, if I have no feeling or thoughts which make me different, if I conform in custom, dress, ideas, to the pattern of the group, I am saved: saved from the frightening experience of aloneness. — Erich Fromm

In contemporary Western society, death is like white noise to a man in good health; it fills his mind when his dreams and plans fade. With age, the noise becomes increasingly insistent, like a dull roar with the occasional screech. In another age the sound meant waiting for the kingdom of God; it is now an anticipation of death. Such is life. — Michel Houellebecq

Whatever it was that came over him that night pulled a cord - her laugh, or her surprise gasp slipping out to think he'd do something so bold. — Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

Attitudes towards menstrual blood in contemporary Western culture still circle around the subject with a mixture of denial and horror, advertisements for sanitary products typically use blue liquid in an attempt to sanitize the reality of blood, weary old jokes circulate about not trusting anything that bleeds for seven days and does not die. Menstrual blood is constructed either as something that requires a hygienic makeover or as something unnatural and obscene, a further indication of the horrors of sexual difference and the threatening 'secrets' of the female body. — Ruth McPhee

In 1970, Women's Lib preached universal sisterhood and resistance to "patriarchy" anywhere and in any form; today, Women's Studies, like contemporary establishment feminism generally, is meekly multicultural, treating non-Western social practices with deference even when they involve the brutal subjection of females. — Bruce Bawer

Material Witness - book 1 (**Named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2012) Nothing But Trouble (Contemporary Western Romance) — Lisa Mondello

Historically, shamans have always been part of the society where they lived, taking care of its problems, whenever they were allowed to operate. For centuries shamanic cultures have been persecuted in the western world until they were almost entirely exterminated. They have managed to survive in secrecy or through complex esoteric camouflage. Nowadays there seems to be more freedom and this ancient knowledge can re-emerge and be used in our own cultural context and not relegated somewhere else. The world needs shamans able to function on the roads, among the electronic equipment and engines, in the squares and markets of our contemporary society. — Franco Santoro

A man who listened? Had she found the eighth wonder of the world? — Carolyn Brown

At the curb, Velia turned, remembering the first day she stood here debating with herself about turning back, running home. But, her inner victim convinced her, this was the right thing to do. Now, she'd be leaving this home that gave her refuge for a time. Where she began to heal. She stood here as the person she used to be before falling victim to abuse - lost for a while. She smiled when she turned back to her car, loaded it, and left to be with the man she loved. — Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

We have evidence all around us in our daily analytic practice and in contemporary world history that this earth-shaking archetypal event is taking place here and now. It has already started. It is manifesting itself in international relations; in the breakdown of the social structures of Western civilization; in political, ethnic, and religious groupings; as well as within the psyches of individuals- the momentous event of the coming of the self into conscious realization. — Edward F Edinger

Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games. It is easy to find a public for eclectic works. — Jean-Francois Lyotard

A lot of my work comes from what in Asia is called the 'mind of wonder.' There is not a lot of 'mind of wonder' writing in contemporary Western literature. I think that's what appeals to the readers who are my fans. — Tom Robbins

Consider yourself warned, Frankie. Something about these mountains convinces previously sane women to give up Starbucks for saddle sores. — Roxanne Snopek

Finally, in 1888, Cixi approved the Western-style Navy Regulations. It was in endorsing these Regulations that she effectively unveiled China's first national flag. The country had had no national ensign, until its engagement with the West at the beginning of her reign necessitated a triangular-shaped golden yellow flag for the nascent navy. Now she endorsed its change into the internationally standard quadrangular shape. On the flag, named the Yellow Dragon, was a vividly blue, animated dragon, raising its head towards a bright-red globe, the sun. With the birth of this national flag, remarked contemporary Western commentators, 'China proudly took her proper place among the nations. — Jung Chang

Leah looked up and didn't even have time to moisten her lips before Rhett's eyes shut and his mouth was on hers. It had the sweetness of ice cream, the fire of a double shot of Jack Daniel's, and the steam of a hot Texas summer night all rolled into one. — Carolyn Brown

When I'm away from you I am lost.
But when I'm with you, I am lost in you. — Eliza Freed

He sauntered across the kitchen, six feet of male hotness and charm, heading in her direction like a drone missile locked on a target. — Melissa McClone

The bats stop flying above and the moon stands still. He commands the air and the sky and my body. — Eliza Freed

In the modern period, the alliance between Christianity and the political order continues to some extent. But even more so, the dream of God has been submerged by the individualism that characterizes much of modern Western culture. The dream of God is quite different from contemporary American dreams. The dream of God - a politics of compassion and justice, the kingdom of God, a domination-free order - is social, communal, and egalitarian. But our dreams - the dreams we get from our culture - are individualistic: living well, looking good, standing out. — Marcus J. Borg

In contrast to earlier textually-focused studies, recent scholarship on worship also highlights diversity and change. Projects to create new rituals and to redesign familiar ones, particularly in ways that make them more fluid and open-ended, have been a hallmark of much Western religious life since the 1960s.7 To take one example within Judaism, some couples now personalize or customize the traditional huppah or canopy beneath which they are married. In some instances, guests decorate a panel of cloth, and meet before the ceremony to offer the bride and groom their encouragement and advice, and join the pieces together. Vanessa Ochs characterizes this as part of a broader, explicit drive 'to personalize and to create community' within contemporary Judaism. — Melanie J. Wright

Consider me your rescuer, not your jailer," he said to Frankie, without looking at her. His gut told him that, on the criminal mastermind scale, this one landed closer to Tinker Bell than Lizzie Borden. — Roxanne Snopek

He was breathing a little faster himself, his heart pounding as he leaned in a tiny bit more. He hovered just shy of her lips before braving the final space between them and pressing his mouth to hers. He knew immediately from the first taste of her that one tiny kiss wasn't going to be enough. — Cat Johnson

Screw you, cowboy!" she yelled after him, saying the word exactly as she had before. "And that horse you rode in on."
And - Whoops! - now everyone in the diner had turned to look at them.
Zane turned around to her with amusement on his face. "Very original, princess. — Kimberly Lewis

Sociologists argue that in contemporary Western society the marketplace has become so dominant that the consumer model increasingly characterizes most relationships that historically were covenantal, including marriage. Today we stay connected to people only as long as they are meeting our particular needs at an acceptable cost to us. When we cease to make a profit - that is, when the relationship appears to require more love and affirmation from us than we are getting back - then we "cut our loses" and drop the relationship. This has also been called "commodification," a process by which social relationships are reduced to economic exchange relationships, and so the very idea of "covenant" is disappearing in our culture. Covenant is therefore a concept increasingly foreign to us, and yet the Bible says it is the essence of marriage. — Timothy Keller

She tossed a handful of snow at his face, then shrieked as the wind whipped it back into her own.
Red hooted. "Karma's a boomerang, sweetheart. Don't forget it. — Roxanne Snopek

Sharon looked at Aaron and smiled. She'd made the right decision, hadn't she? Would she come to regret this decision too? She'd made so many mistakes in the past. Was this another one? No, self-doubt isn't an option. Everything is going to work out here. It has to. — Tamara Hoffa

There is a place where the mountains tumble one upon the other off into the far distance, peak after treeless peak. Steep ridges connect them and deep canyons slash them apart. The grassy summits are wreathed with black sage. No roads intrude upon this jumble of oak-filled canyons and steep-sided hills, only the ambling trails made by deer, coyotes, and bears. The local Indians believe the spirits of the ancients still travel these roads. — R. Lawson Gamble

It is also more than likely that women invented that most fundamental of all material technologies, without which civilization could not have evolved: the domestication of plants and animals. In fact, even though this is hardly ever mentioned in the books and classes where we learn history of "ancient man", most scholars today agree that this is probably how it was. They note that in contemporary gatherer-hunter societies, women, not men, are typically in charge of processing food. It would thus have been more likely that it was women who first dropped seeds on the ground of their encampments, and also began to tame young animals by feeding and caring for them as they did for their own young. Anthropologists also point to the fact that in the primarily horticultural economies of "developing" tribes and nations, contrary to Western assumptions, the cultivation of the soil is to this day primarily in the hands of women. — Riane Eisler

I know what it's like to be different. I'm a Native American in a white world. — Tamara Hoffa

People don't really have much of a choice when the heart falls. I'm lucky enough that mine just so happened to fall for you, Misty." - Dylan to Misty in, When the Heart Falls — Kimberly Lewis

Rory's big labradoodle made a snap judgement that Frankie was everything her life had been missing up until now. She flung herself into the girl's arms, wiggling and whining, a shaggy mass of chocolate-colored enthusiasm.
"Mistral likes you, I see." While he, the one who filled the dog's food dish, had gotten nothing but suspicious glances since he arrived two days earlier.
"of course you like me" she said, baby-talking into the dog's fur, "I'm extremely likeable."
If the dog's expression was any indication, Frankie was about to get nominated for sainthood....
She glanced at him. "Maybe she'd like you more if you weren't so... testosterone-y."
"But then you might like me less — Roxanne Snopek

Full of intrigue, tangled pasts, and raw emotions, [Gambling On A Secret by Sara Walter Ellwood] is guaranteed to keep you turning pages from start to finish and then wishing for one more chapter! — Carolyn Brown

Bending the law is different from breaking, my lovely, strategically-challenged Francesca. — Roxanne Snopek

I was struck - not for the first time in my years of travel - by how isolating contemporary American society can seem by comparison. Where I came from, we have shriveled down the notion of what constitutes 'a family unit' to such a tiny scale that it would probably be unrecognizable as a family to anybody in one of these big, loose, enveloping Hmong clans. You almost need an electron microscope to study the modern Western family these days. — Elizabeth Gilbert

This is Bourbon Street, isn't it? Where's the freakin' bourbon? — Eliza Freed

Dammit? Why would you give a dog such a name? Or is that a third date story too?"
"No, it's only a dog story." Rhett smiled and the temperature in the store shot up several degrees. "I named him Lambert after Miranda Lambert, but I guess he didn't like bein' named after a girl, so he sat there like a knot on a log every time I called him. So I'd say, 'Dammit, come here.' And here he'd come runnin' hell-bent for leather. So I gave up and called him Dammit. — Carolyn Brown

An effective proclamation of the Gospel in contemporary Western society will need to confront directly the widespread spirit of agnosticism and relativism which has cast doubt on reason's ability to know the truth, which alone satisfies the human heart's restless quest for meaning. — Pope John Paul II

There's something about a cowboy... — Kathleen Ball