Corner Or Wall Quotes & Sayings

A bad guy in a movie has a lot of latitude for acting. He can walk up the wall, crawl across the ceiling, go piss in the corner and everybody will say, "Fantastic!" But somebody's going to have to catch that sucker. Somebody's going to have to play the guy who gets him in the end. And that's a better part. — Harrison Ford

There will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart,
The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust.
A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest
corner of it. — Carl Sandburg

I rushed to the bathroom for every corner of the hospital was suffocating. I got hold of acid-bottle, which was meant for toilet cleaning. As I took it into my hands, I realized I had more filth inside me than a toilet. A toilet could be cleaned by an acid bottle, or a toilet cleaner, but there was no such product that could cleanse a criminal from inside. I felt so ashamed of myself that I couldn't even look into the eyes of my reflection in the mirror on the wall. — Mehek Bassi

The incident made her remember the story she had heard about the girl who was raised in a room with no horizontal lines. She couldn't recall whether the story was true or simply a thought experiment, but the room, as she remembered it, was decorated with a series of black verticle stripes on the walls, and the floor and ceiling were curved to give the illusion that the verticle stripes were continuous. On the child's first birthday, the story went, she was taken out of the room. She had learned how to recognize verticle forms, but not horizontal ones, so that if she was situated on a table, say, or a platform, she would crawl right off the edge, but she would never run into the corner of a wall or the leg of a chair. Her condition lasted for about a month before her visual sense finally corrected itself. — Kevin Brockmeier

By the time Christmas came around, while all the other kids made cards, she had me sit in a corner and face the wall because I wasn't a "believer." (27) — Eddie Huang

So, what's behind door number one?" Mary commented, bringing him out of his thoughts as the second air lock door opened.
"Pardon?"
"Oh, nothing. Game show reference, I make silly comments when I get nervous."
He led the way in to the corridor, on either side glass windows looked over the flanking rooms but it was too dark to see anything. Valdagerion suddenly stopped, listening. Abruptly he pressed her flat against the wall, almost crushing her just as four armed Unseeile appeared around the curve in the corner, rifles aiming. Blue bursts of light and heat flew past them.
"Shit." Mary squeaked. "I would have settled for the cuddly toy. — D.M. Alexandra

And the art was in every corner and wall ... a Mural of the Century of Progress in Colombia South America is rich in detail, painted by a student of the Fine Arts Academy of Chicago named Santiago Martinez; a name to remember ... — Santiago Martinez Delgado

I stop dead in my tracks when I see Nash leaning against the wall right outside the ladies' room. His legs are crossed casually at the ankle, as his arms are crossed casually over his chest. His smile is faint. And sad.
Finally, he straightens and steps toward me. He doesn't stop until he is mere inches from me, forcing me to tilt my face up just to maintain eye contact.
He brushes his thumb over the ridge of my cheekbone at the corner of my eye. I wonder briefly if I missed a streak of mascara.
"I'm so sorry," he whispers, closing his eyes as if in pain. His face is etched with regret and it tugs at my heart.
"Don't be. You can't control other people. I just hope I haven't embarrassed you too badly, or ruined any important business connections you were hoping to make."
"I don't care about business connections. Not at this cost. — M. Leighton

In the warmer months of the year one or other of those nocturnal insects quite often strays indoors from the small garden behind my house. When I get up early in the morning, I find them clinging to the wall, motionless. I believe, said Austerlitz, they know they have lost their way, since if you do not put them out again carefully they will stay where they are, never moving, until the last breath is out of their bodies, and indeed they will remain in the place where they came to grief even after death, held fast by the tiny claws that stiffened in their last agony, until a draft of air detaches them and blows them into a dusty corner. Sometimes, seeing one of these moths that have met their end in my house, I wonder what kind of fear and pain they feel while they are lost. — W.G. Sebald

All I can see when I look at him is a belt swinging toward Tobias, and the butt of a gun slamming into Caleb's jaw. I don't care that he hurt Caleb
I would have done it, too
but that he is simultaneously a man who knows how to hurt people and a man who parades around as the self-effacing leader of Abnegation, suddenly makes me so angry I can't see straight.
Especially because I chose him. I chose him over Tobias.
"Your brother is a traitor," says Marcus as we turn a corner. "He deserved worse. There's no need to look at me that way."
"Shut up!" I shout, shoving him hard into the wall. He is too surprised to push back. "I hate you, you know that! I hate you for what you did to him, and I am not talking about Caleb." I lean close to his face and whisper, "And while I may not shoot you myself, I will definitely not help you if someone tries to kill you, so you'd better hope to God we don't get into that situation. — Veronica Roth

Out of the corner of one eye, I could see my mother. Out of the corner of the other eye, I could see her shadow on the wall, cast there by the lamp-light. It was a big and solid shadow, and it looked so much like my mother that I became frightened. For I could not be sure whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world. — Jamaica Kincaid

Sunshine, I ... Starla's voice broke off as she entered the room and caught sight of him standing naked in the corner. She eyed him in an odd, detached way, as if he were an interesting piece of furniture.
Talon and modesty were strangers, but the way she stared at him made him damned uncomfortable. In spite of the sunlight, Talon grabbed the pink blanket off the bed and clutched it to his middle.
You know, Sunshine, you need to find a man like that to marry. Someone so well hung that even after three or four kids, he'd still be wall to wall.
Talon gaped.
Sunshine laughed. Starla, you're embarrassing him. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I know as soon as we hit the sweet spot, an intangible instant when the music gains control of fluttering wings to take real flight - soaring, swooping, diving and rising in the small studio. No single one of us is in control. The wall of sound is its own thing - lifted, weight shared, by five pairs of hands. I shake hair from closed eyes just because I need to move. If I let the pressure build and build and keep it in my hands, in the guitar, I'll explode. We carve out places for the verses, the chorus repetitions, and the coda. We line the edges of sonic space with rhythm and melody and stand Scope's sharp samples at each corner. — Emma Trevayne

He glanced at Flat Finn, who was positioned in one corner of the room, facing the wall. "What is Flat Finn doing? If he's urinating on the floor, you're cleaning it up."
...
"Is he in trouble? He has to stand in the corner and think about what he's done? — Jessica Park

Take off your shoes," Jake said after the kids disappeared up the stairs. Meridith eyed her leather loafers. For some reason, she was reluctant to part with them. Not to mention she needed every inch of height. "You're still wearing yours." "I'm not planning on trampling your feet." She removed her shoes and set them by the wall, taking her time. "You want something to drink? I made coffee. Or there's always tea or soda if you prefer." He tucked the corner of his lip. "No, thanks. You want to come closer? I can't teach you from over there." She inched closer. "I'm really bad." "So you said." He gestured to the blue box. "We'll start with a basic box step. Ballroom dancing is counted off like this: one-two-three, one-two-three. Max said he knows how to lead, so I'll teach you to follow." "Good luck with that." "Stand — Denise Hunter

Sprigs of plum by the corner of the wall
Are blooming alone in the cold;
If not for the subtle fragrance drifting over
Who could tell this from snow on the boughs. — Wang Anshi

The only furniture in the dank space was a flimsy cot. Water dripped steadily in one corner. A hole in the floor appeared to serve as a latrine. What most caught Kendra's eye were the messages scratched on the wall. She roamed the cell, reading the crudely inscribed phrases.

"Seth rules!

Welcome to Seth's House.

Seth rocks!

Seth was here. Now it's your turn.

Seth Sorenson forever.

Enjoy the food!

If you're reading this, you can read.

All roads lead to Seth.

Is it still dripping?

Seth haunts these halls.

You're in a Turkish prison!

Seth is the man!

Use the meal mats as toilet paper." And so forth.

Cold, hopeless, and alone, Kendra found herself giggling at the messages her brother had scrawled. He must have been so bored! — Brandon Mull

He was swaying back and forth with their daughter gazing adoringly into his face from the cradle of his arms. "I'm going to do my best to make sure your life is awesome, but it won't always be. Those are the times you need to dance in the kitchen the most. It's good for your soul."
Beth sighed and leaned her head against the corner of the wall, as enchanted as Lily by the soft, tender timbre of his voice.
"You don't even need music," he told Lily. "You can dance to the music in your head. Hopefully not to that country-and-western shit your mother listens to, though. Oh ... damn. Don't say shit, Lily-bean. Or if you do and Mommy hears you, don't tell her you heard it from me, okay? Tell her Uncle Mike said it. — Shannon Stacey

Out the corner of my eye I see Packard fly at Marty, pin him against the wall. "You do not do that! You do not!" He jerks Marty with every *not*. "You do *not* disrespect that woman, you understand me?" Packard speaks through his teeth, as if to bite back his fury. "It was your goddamn *lucky* day she decided to come in here. And you would spit at her? You were *privileged* she came in here! — Carolyn Crane

Can you help me move those tables against the wall?" Mama pointed to five tables in the back corner. "The funeral home said they needed four feet of clearance all the way around. — Katie Graykowski

We're creating a dystopia, where the mania of the state isn't secrecy or censorship but unfairness. Obsessed with success and wealth and despising failure and poverty, our society is systematically dividing the population into winners and losers, using institutions like the courts to speed the process. Winners get rich and get off. Losers go broke and go to jail. It isn't just that some clever crook on Wall Street can steal a billion dollars and never see the inside of a courtroom; it's that, plus the fact that some black teenager a few miles away can go to jail just for standing on a street corner, that makes the whole picture complete. — Matt Taibbi

Graff was floating on his back in the pool when George Wall and I went outside. His brown belly swelled above its surface like the humpback of a Galapagos tortoise. Mrs. Graff, fully clothed, was sitting by herself in a sunny corner. Her black dress and black hair seemed to annul the sunlight. Her face and body had the distinction that takes the place of beauty in people who have suffered long and hard. — Ross Macdonald

The conclusion to be drawn is that I am happiest writing in small rooms. They make me feel comfortable and secure. And it took me years to figure out that I need to write in a corner. Like a small animal burrowing into its hole, I shift furniture around, and back myself into a cozy corner, with my back to the wall ... and then I can write. — Danielle Steel

A huge fireplace and Dutch oven of fieldstone filled one wall. Over them hung a long muzzle-loading rifle, powder horn, and bullet pouch. On the mantel were candle molds, a coffee mill, an iron and trivet, and a rusty kettle. An iron cauldron, big enough to boil a missionary in, swung at the end of a long arm in the fireplace, and below it, like so many black offspring, were a cluster of small pots. A wooden butter churn held the door open, and clusters of Indian corn hung from the molding at aesthetic intervals. A colonial scythe stood in one corner, and two Boston rockers on a hooked rug faced the cold fireplace, where the unwatched pot never boiled. Paul — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And while you and the rest of your kind are battling together - year after year - for this special privilege of being 'bored to death,' the 'real girl' that you're asking about, the marvelous girl, the girl with the big, beautiful, unspoken thoughts in her head, the girl with the big, brave, undone deeds in her heart, the girl that stories are made of, the girl whom you call 'improbable' - is moping off alone in some dark, cold corner - or sitting forlornly partnerless against the bleak wall of the ballroom - or hiding shyly up in the dressing-room - waiting to be discovered! — Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

Well," she repeated, "be it all right with you if Mr. Death pins her to the wall?"
Devyl hesitated as several scenarios for those words went through his mind. William having his way with the beast in a corner.
Or Will literally daggering the hag. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

there was a time when this home was her domain. Sometimes she felt proud of it, sometimes she felt tied to it, but whether it was a burden or a blessing, it was hers to keep. She'd known better than anyone what this house needed; lately it'd become one of the few aspects of her life she could control. there is no corner, no ridge along the steps or crack along the wall, that she doesn't know like her own body. the house may never have been the sanctuary she'd always dreamed of, but at least it carried no surprises. It was comfortable. — Natalia Sylvester

When Christian pushes into the brick wall of the building catty-corner to the rear of BB&B - first left on the Dark Zone side - and disappears, I melt down in a fit of the giggles. I toss a rock at the spot where he vanished. It bounces off the brick and clatters to the cobblestone. I'm feeling twenty shades of Harry Potter's train station, especially when he pokes his head out of the wall and says impatiently, Come on, lass. This is hardly my favorite place to be. — Karen Marie Moning

In an ancient though not very populous settlement, in a retired corner of one of the New England states, arise the walls of a seminary of learning, which, for the convenience of a name, shall be entitled Harley College. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

He knew nothing about werewolves but what was in the movies. He hadn't even believed they existed until he was attacked. The tall dude, though, knew.
Joshua managed to force his body to make a left-hand turn at the corner, and again once he was across the street, and then a third time. He came looping past the Kitchen Kitsch where the tall dude was standing in the hole in the wall.
"You're really conflicted about this running away part, aren't you?" the dude said as Joshua dashed past him.
"Yes!" He tried to put on the brakes but his body kept running. He could smell his own blood on the man and his body wanted nothing to do with that.
The dude wasn't standing in the hole as Joshua came looping back toward the Kitchen Kitsch a second time. Joshua was afraid he'd lost the man. He was so focused on the opposite side of the street that he nearly ran into the glass door that opened out in front of him. A hand caught him, jerking him into the building. — Wen Spencer

Not to worry, Phillip," Father O'Toole said. "I was just inquiring as to what authority they - " He stopped abruptly, jumping forward as the wall phone came unhinged behind him, dangling by a corner screw.
"Huh," Gil pondered. "Look at that."
"What happened?" Father O'Toole asked.
"The phone fell," Gil answered.
"Well, naturally! I'm not blind, young man. I'm asking how the phone fell!"
"I blame gravity," Gil offered. (Excerpt from Whisper of Light) — Jennifer DeLucy

There will even be some of his own reverence (and of bodily sensations accompanying it) objectified and attributed to the object revered. I have known cases where what the patient called his "God" was actually located - up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall. But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it - to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. You — C.S. Lewis

Origins and History of Consciousness
III.
It's simple to wake from sleep with a stranger,
dress, go out, drink coffee,
enter a life again. It isn't simple
to wake from sleep into the neighborhood
of one neither strange nor familiar
whom we have chosen to trust. Trusting, untrusting,
we lowered ourselves into this, let ourselves
downward hand over hand as on a rope that quivered
over the unsearched ... . We did this. Conceived
of each other, conceived each other in a darkness
which I remember as drenched in light.
I want to call this, life.
But I can't call it life until we start to move
beyond this secret circle of fire
where our bodies are giant shadows flung on a wall
where the night becomes our inner darkness, and sleeps
like a dumb beast, head on her paws, in the corner. — Adrienne Rich

I watched him depart, steeled myself and then walked over to Kanin, who hadn't moved from his place in the corner.
"That was interesting." he mused in a toneless voice as I joined him along the wall. "I assume that last display was solely for my benefit? — Julie Kagawa

Shrinking in a corner,
pressed into the wall;
do they know I'm present,
am I here at all?
Is there a written rule book,
that tells you how to be
all the right things to talk about
that everyone has but me?
Slowly I am withering
a flowered deprived of sun;
longing to belong to
somewhere or someone. — Lang Leav

Mr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. — Charles Dickens

Beyond the field my eyes studied a long wall of pine trees, a windbreak of sorts that stretched from the road back toward an old farmhouse and an older barn surrounded by low brush. Through the binoculars, I could just make out the top of Carney's Impala parked in the side yard by the house. From a long way off you could see that the white house paint was blistered or gone to bare clapboard. The roof of the barn looked like it had been hit by lightning at some point. There was a charred, gaping hole on one corner. The whole structure sagged left. — James Patterson

When we got back to the house Logan grabbed his basketball, threw it really hard against the hallway wall, knocked the framed family photo to the floor-it didn't break, he didn't pick it up-and left with a couple of his friends. Thebes picked up the photo, hung it back on the wall, sighed heavily like she'd travelled to every corner of the world, on her knees, with a knife in her back and a boa constrictor wrapped around her chest, and then made us a couple of blueberry smoothies. — Miriam Toews

I would be in a room full of people being loud and running around, and I'd be in the corner just playing with the wall. So I was very, very quiet, but when I really got into the arts, that opened me up. — Harry Shum Jr.

I turned and held the blade above us all as an ineffective shield.
The bloodstain on the ceiling now spread almost wall to wall; in our corner, a single triangle of clean space remained. Elsewhere torrents of blood fell in curtains, roaring, driving, gusting like rain waves in a thunderstorm. The floor was awash. It pooled between the floorboards and lashed up against the wainscoting. The chandelier dripped with it: the crystals shone red. Now I knew why the chamber was without furniture of any kind, why it had been deserted for so many years. Now I knew why it had the name it did. — Jonathan Stroud

The ethos on Wall Street has not changed, and that's not going to come from the corner office. That's going to come, for better or worse, from Washington, and the whole idea of greed is still good, that is still pervasive. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

walking slowly along the alleys and through the passages, up and down stairways, deeper into the older part, unchanged in generations. Water dripped off rotting eaves, the stones were slimy, wood creaked, doors hung crooked but fast closed. People moved ahead of him and behind like shadows. One moment it would be strange, frightening and bitterly infectious, the next he thought he recognized something. He would turn a corner and see exactly what he expected, a skyline or a crooked wall exactly as he had known it would be, a door with huge iron studs whose pattern he could have traced with his eyes closed. — Anne Perry

Explore me,' you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I'm free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognise myself again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon's wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know. — Jeanette Winterson

Looked excitingly purposeful, with large video screens ranged over the control and guidance system panels on the concave wall, and long banks of computers set into the convex wall. In one corner a robot sat humped, — Douglas Adams

You prefer the bed on the opposite wall?"
"I prefer the bookshelf in the lower left corner of the room, and the ceiling fan not to be hanging over my head while I sleep."
"OCD?"
"Feng shui."
"Is it contagious?"
"Hardly anyone gets it. — Devon Monk

The intruder hesitated, turned, and anchored itself in the corner, where the ceiling met the wall. It sat there, fastened to the paneling by enormous yellow talons, still and silent like a gargoyle in full sunlight. I took a swig from the bottle and set it so I could still see the creatures reflection. Nude and hairless, it didn't carry a single ounce of fat on its lean frame. Its skin stretched so tight over the cords of muscle, it threatened to snap. Like a thin layer of wax melted over an anatomy model.
Your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman. — Ilona Andrews

The room was a library. Not a public library, but a private library; that is, a collection of books belonging to Justice Strauss. There were shelves and shelves of them, on every wall from the floor to the ceiling, and separate shelves of them in the middle of the room. The only place were there weren't books was in one corner, where there were some large, comfortable-looking chairs and a wooden table with lamps hanging over them, perfect for reading. Although it was not as big as their parents library, it was cozy, and the Baudelaire children were thrilled. — Lemony Snicket

Cole had made this commitment to save Beckett from hell. So he had to keep it, no matter how endlessly his soul cried in the corner of the church, begging and reaching for Kyle. At that moment he'd built a wall between her soul and his. Confusion turned to anger, which turned to panic as Kyle tried desperately to bring him back, to reconnect.
She tried to kiss the truth out of him, but he turned his head and held her at bay. She fell to her knees, but he just shook his head. His future was predetermined. Even if banishing this newborn love sliced his heart in half, it had to be done. — Debra Anastasia

His exhaustion is that of the gladiator after the combat; his labor was the whitewashing of a corner of the wall in his office. — Kafka, Franz

Wall Street bankers supposedly back the Yankees; Smith College girls approve of them. God, Brooks Brothers, and United States Steel are believed to be solidly in the Yankees' corner ... The efficiently triumphant Yankee maching is a great institution, but, as they say, who can fall in love with U.S. Steel? — Gay Talese

Now, Mama, Papa, and sir," said Ramses, "please withdraw to the farthest corner and crouch down with your backs turned. It is as I feared; we will never break through by this method. The walls are eight feet thick. Fortunately I brought along a little nitroglycerin
" "Oh, good Gad," shrieked Inspector Cuff. — Barbara Mertz

In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don't have that luxury. — Tom Robbins

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Piece and Piece and twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so. — Bret Easton Ellis

The old house had a thousand doors in it.

All old houses do. You can see them if you know how to look: the noontime shadow of a windowpane crawling with intent across a floor; unmeasured angles of wall meeting wall; fireplaces grown chill with unused years. Archways with unseen contours you can trace with a finger in the cracks as brick grinds against brick in settling walls. Some nights, and some houses are doorways entire, silhouettes against the evening's last light black on black like an opening into a darker sky. You just have to look. An eye-corner glance will do, if you don't turn and stare and explain it away. — Michael Montoure

You have to work to carve out your own little corner, and I'm certainly smacking my head against the wall trying to make a dent. I just hope I don't get brain-damaged before I get there — Rose McGowan

She skidded around a corner, slamming her shoulder into the wall and bouncing off of it without slowing.

Caleb?

Silence. Forty-six meters. A long stretch of hallway. She pushed faster, harder. Twenty meters.

She burst into the room in unison with a deafening crash of metal shearing metal. — G.S. Jennsen

We were too late for the elevated, and walked back downtown through Hanover Street. I remember that wall. We switched from Tremont up Beacon, and Pickman left me at the corner of Joy, where I turned off. I never spoke to him again. — H.P. Lovecraft

They always left the thermos full, ready for their return home. The five minutes devoted to that small late-night feast made them feel rather special, as if they had suddenly left the mediocrity of their lives behind them and risen a few rungs on the economic ladder. The kitchen disappeared and gave way to an intimate little drawing room with expensive furniture and paintings on the wall and a piano in one corner. — Jose Saramago

All roads lead to Wall Street, but we feel the effects of Wall Street on every street corner. Certainly in Syracuse, N.Y., where I live. — Dana Spiotta

I thought we'd turned a corner. Maybe we did, but we hit a brick wall anyway. — Sylvia Day

It was hard to imagine feeling that magical tingling sensation in the pit of her belly anytime soon. Best not to worry about it, she thought. She didn't need it. Well. She didn't want to need it. Yearning for love made her feel like a cat that was always twining around ankles, meowing Pet me, pet me, look at me, love me.
Better to be the cat gazing coolly down from a high wall, its expression inscrutable. The cat that shunned petting, that needed no one. Why couldn't she be that cat?
Be that cat!!! she wrote, drawing it into the corner of her page, cool and aloof. — Laini Taylor

The interior was dim like a cave. The ceiling, pressed tin, was stalactited with hooks from the days when the shopkeeper would hang it with buckets, watering cans, coils of rope and paired boots. Refrigerator cases lined a side wall, shallow crates of withered fruit and vegetables the back, and in the vast middle ground were aisles of rickety shelving, stacked with anything from tinned peaches to tampons. The sole cash register was adjacent to the entrance, next to ranks of daily newspapers and weekly and monthly magazines and a little bookcase thumbtacked with a sign, Library. If you were a farmer in need of an axe or some some sheep dip you headed for the far back corner. If you wanted to buy a stamp, you headed a couple of paces past the library. — Garry Disher

Before I can even ask what he means, he skims his licorice-scented lips across my forehead - just shy of touching - his warm breath dragging across my left eye patch, then down a cheek, toward my mouth. The corner of my mouth tickles as he passes over it; then his breath stops to hover across my chin.
His palms rest against the wall on either side of my head. He lets the web serve as his hands, his breath serve as his lips, holding me immobile and kissing me without ever touching me. — A.G. Howard

How could he possibly explain himself to these people? They wanted to learn English for show-off social reasons, or to be able to read Aldous Huxley in the original. Whereas he had learned German simply and solely to be able to talk to his sex partners. For him, the entire German language - all the way from the keep-off-the-grass signs in the park to Goethe's stanza on the wall - was irradiated with sex. For him, the difference between a table and ein Tisch was that a table was the dining table in his mother's house and ein Tisch was ein Tisch in the Cosy Corner. * — Christopher Isherwood

Matt asked me to join the Upright Citizens Brigade, a relatively young sketch group. They needed a girl. I had heard of their shows around town, which seemed like a mixture of improvisation and performance art. They had done a show where each member sat on a street corner and had a Thanksgiving dinner. They did a show where they pretended a member was committing suicide. They did a show where they took an audience member for a virtual-reality tour out into the streets of Chicago. Most of their stuff was about getting the audience out of their chairs and out of their comfort zone. The Upright Citizens Brigade name came from a fake big bad corporation that was mentioned in one of their shows. The idea was this group had co-opted the name and was causing chaos on purpose - picture Occupy Wall Street if they renamed themselves "Halliburton Inc." Like I said, Matt had big ideas. He had a big plan for the UCB and I wanted to be part of it. I grabbed his coattails and held on tight. — Amy Poehler

Partying on the Malecon

One of the most exciting areas in Havana is the Malecon, a protective sea wall which buffers the northern edge of the Vedado neighborhood of Havana, from the Straits of Florida. Busiest during weekends, it is the most popular place to stroll and is an unrivaled meeting spot for guys and dolls. For this activity the primary party area is the corner of the Malecon and La Rampa, and for a country as poor as Cuba the Malecon offers a reasonable form of entertainment and people watching. Although there are nightclubs in Havana, spending an evening along the Malecon, is probably the best way to enjoy the pulse of Havana and offers visitors a chance to interact with friendly locals. — Hank Bracker

O what hardness of heart mayst thou see in every corner whither thou goest, and where thou preachest, most part being as unconcerned as the very stones of the wall; and say what thou wilt, either by setting before them alluring promises or dreadful threatenings, yet people are hardened against both, none relenting for what they have done, or concerned about it. — Thomas Boston

That was how a Salomon bond trader thought: He forgot whatever it was that he wanted to do for a minute and put his finger on the pulse of the market. If the market felt fidgety, if people were scared or desperate, he herded them like sheep into a corner, then made them pay for their uncertainty. He sat on the market until it puked gold coins. Then he worried about what he wanted to do. — Michael Lewis

A man is not a wall, whose stones are crushed upon the road; or a pipe, whose fragments are thrown away at a street corner. The fragments of an intellect are always good. — George Sand

Looking at a photograph by Helen Levitt of four boys in a New York street, we are likely to find ourselves longing to comfort the grim-faced, stoic young man in the corner, whose mother perhaps only half an hour ago did up the many buttons of his handsome coat, and whose distressed expression evokes a pure form of agony. But how very different the same scene would have looked from just a metre away and another viewpoint. To the boy at the far right, what appears to matter most is a chance to take a closer look at his friend's toy. He has already lost any interest in the overdressed crybaby by the wall, whom he and his classmates have just slapped hard for a bit of fun, on this day as on most others. — Alain De Botton

If you think you can just scare the crap out of me and walk home like nothing happened you are very wrong, mister." Cassie's voice, although steady, was now seething with anger. "What the hell happened out there, Trevor!?"

Trevor checked his surroundings, crawled closer to the gate, and popped his head around the corner of the wall to check the house. Again, loud growls echoed in his ears and the gate shook under weight of a body butting up against it. The dogs were right in his face doing what they were trained to do - guard the property.

"Dogs, Cassie...big dogs happened. — Cecilia Aubrey

From the corner of her eye, the wildflowers along the wall caught her attention. "Roar, wait!"
Roar turned around. "Yes?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.
Aria ran to the wall, scanning the flowers. She found the right one and plucked it. She drew in its scent and imagined Perry walking beside her, his bow across his back, looking over with his lopsided grin.
She brought the flower to Roar. "I changed my mind," she said. "Give him this."
Roar's eyes crinkled in confusion. "I thought you liked roses. What's this?"
"A violet." — Veronica Rossi

Cort Lindahl discovered that the Great Pyramid [points to] Mecca and wrote about it in his books. And I hereby shed more light onto that by revealing that it even points to almost the same direction which the Black Stone points at! The Black Stone is located at the Kaaba's eastern corner; the corner from which the rotation of the pilgrimage around the Kaaba starts. It is as if the facade in front of the low wall of the Kaaba were pointing to the Great Pyramid's direction, or more accurately, the Great Pyramid does indeed point at the exact direction by which the Kaaba was mounted. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

I heard the man and woman cry a warning as I frantically racked my brain for some sort of throat-repairing spell, which I was clearly about to need. Of course the only words that I actually managed to yell at the werewolf as he ran at me were, 'BAD DOG!'
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of blue light on my left. Suddenly, the werewolf seemed to smack into an invisible wall just inches in front of me ...
"You know," someone said off to my left, "I usually find a blocking spell to be a lot more effective than yelling 'Bad dog,' but maybe that's just me. — Rachel Hawkins