Crossing The Water Quotes & Sayings

Water splashed over my jeans, and I yelped as something burned my skin.
We examined my leg. Tiny holes marred my jeans where the drops had hit, the material seared away, the skin underneath red and burned. It throbbed as if I'd jabbed needles into my flesh.
"What the heck?" I muttered, glaring into the storm. It looked like ordinary rain - gray, misty, somewhat depressing. Almost compulsively, I stuck my hand toward the opening, where water dripped over the edge of the tube.
Ash grabbed my wrist, snatching it back. "Yes, it will burn your hand as well as your leg," he said in a bland voice. "And here I thought you learned your lesson with the chains."
Embarrassed, I dropped my hand and scooted farther into the tube, away from the rim and the acid rain dripping from it. "Guess I'm staying up all night," I muttered, crossing my arms. "Wouldn't want to doze off and find half my face melted off when I wake up. — Julie Kagawa

Our guns were still strapped onto our backs, because a gun meant life. Without it there was no life in the LRA. After crossing the water and walking for a long time, there was a whisper in my heart, telling me that if we kept the guns we would get killed.

I was learning to listen to this gentle voice that spoke to my heart. This time what was said was hard to accept. I didn't know how I would convince my friends to throw away what seemed to be their last hope. The voice would not leave me alone. It continued to whisper in my ears to drop the guns. — Grace Akallo

Aboard the gondola, Giacomo Foscarini sat facing Mathias. They were crossing the Canal Grande, then they would navigate around San Marco and return. Foscarini loved to travel around Venice this way. They stopped briefly at a mooring near the bridge to the Rialto, and Foscarini had a servant fetch green olives, fresh Piacenza cheese, a few sausages from Modena, and wine that had just been delivered from Crete. The nobleman often dined aboard his gondola, looking out over the city, watching his world. "Seen from this vantage point, Venice doesn't seem like it's in any of its terrible troubles at all magister," said Foscarini. — Riccardo Bruni

The vital elements are often momentary, change-sent things ... a gleam of light on water, a trail of smoke from a passing train, a cat crossing the threshold. Sometimes they are a matter of luck, sometimes of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that you have seen. It is usually some incidental detail that heightens the effect of a picture, stressing a pattern, deepening the sense of atmosphere. — Bill Brandt

History had already done the really messy work, when Wintermute found him, sifting him out of all of the war's ripe detritus, gliding into the man's flat gray field of consciousness like a water spider crossing the face of some stagnant pool, — William Gibson

The ship anchored in the harbor rots faster than the ship crossing the ocean; a still pool of water stagnates more rapidly than a running stream. — Brownie Wise

Among the environmental trends undermining our future are shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, disappearing species, and rising temperatures. The temperature increases bring crop-withering heat waves, more-destructive storms, more-intense droughts, more forest fires, and, of course, ice melting. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize. — Lester R. Brown

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, at high speed, her eyes fixed on the road, Abigail asked, a little loudly above the hum, 'Do you think that neurosis is when you lie to yourself so much that other people start to notice?' Christopher, who'd been looking through the blurred bridge railing down to the boats on the bay, turned and responded, 'I think it's when your past is like a floor set on water and it won't right itself, so you're shifting your weight and contorting yourself in ways that only make sense to you because no one else can see how you're trying to balance yourself, how you're trying just to stand. — Lindsay Hill

I do not believe, even remotely, that you have to have a partner in your life in order to be whole, in order to be complete, in order to be fulfilled. You just don't have to. — Phil McGraw

A place for everything, everything in its place. — Benjamin Franklin

If I look at the fighters that are coming through, fighters like Carl Froch for instance, do I worry about fighters like that? Course not, I could eat them for breakfast. — Joe Calzaghe

The ancient Masters were profound and subtle.
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it;
all we can describe is their appearance.
They were careful
as someone crossing an iced-over stream.
Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.
Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
The Master doesn't seek fulfillment..
Not seeking, not expecting,
she is present, and can welcome all things. — Lao-Tzu

Dilemmas of the Angels: Flight"

Before the angel there was something else -
not this coffee shop next to a drug rehabilitation center
filled with war veterans of the past, men and women
strapped to their chairs, birds straining to rise
from piles of feathers, bones, and blood.

Drenched in sweat and a little shaky
from too much caffeine, she takes flight,
a shining white-winged trumpeter swan
crossing open water, steam rising
from the feathers' barbs. Below her,
a cormorant, unfolding its black wings,
explodes from the surface, and even fish,
leaping from the oily sheen, glide
for a moment, gills pumping
in the poisonous atmosphere.

Such longing. How large
the muscles in our shoulders must be
to lift our wings even a single time. — David Romtvedt

...he was forty bushels beyond bamboozled. — Chuck Klosterman

The wind comes across the plains not howling but singing. It's the difference between this wind and its big-city cousins: the full-throated wind of the plains has leeway to seek out the hidden registers of its voice. Where immigrant farmers planted windbreaks a hundred and fifty years ago. it keens in protest; where the young corn shoots up, it whispers as it passes, crossing field after field in its own time, following eastward trends but in no hurry to find open water. You can't usually see it in paintings, but it's an important part of the scenery. — John Darnielle

The sniper puts the cellist in his sights. Arrow is about to send a bullet into him, but stops. His finger isn't on the trigger ... His hand isn't even in the vicinity of the trigger ... His head leans back slightly, and she sees that his eyes are closed, that he is no longer looking through his scope. She knows what he's doing. It's very clear to her, unmistakable. He's listening to the music. And then Arrow knows why he didn't fire yesterday ... She is at once, sure of two things. The first is that she does not want to kill this man, and the second is that she must. Time is running out. There's no reason not to kill him. A sniper of his ability has wihtout doubt killed dozens, if not hundreds. Not just soldiers. Women crossing streets. Children in playgrounds. Old men in water lines. She knows this to a certainity. Yet she doesn't want to pull her trigger. All because she can see that he doesn't want to pull his ... The final notes of the cellist's melody reach him, and he smiles. — Steven Galloway

Being who we are requires that we can talk openly about things that are important to us, that we take a clear position on where we stand on important emotional issues, and that we clarify the limits of what is acceptable and tolerable to us in a relationship. — Harriet Lerner

I know what it's like to be famous. It's good money and it's great fun. A real kick in the pants. People wave at you and smile at you. You get great tables in restaurants. They send you gifts - beautiful clothes and cars. — Pierce Brosnan

Live your life in any way, London says. It encourages defiance. I loved what it gave me, who it allowed me to be. On the nights I could afford a minicab home, I rolled down the window while crossing the river and watched the lights on the water, knowing most late-night minicabbers were reaffirming their love of London with the same view. I loved its messiness, its attempts at order. I loved the anonymity it afforded; — Craig Taylor

Someone told me I'd find a princess of great worth here. One with the strength to be the hero this realm needs."
He stared at me with those unsettling blue eyes. They were cold, like ice water - made me shiver from head to toe. Then his gaze seemed to search even deeper. Finally, he looked through me, like I was nothing. In brisk steps, he strode across the marble to the courtyard. But before crossing the threshold, he turned back to glare at me with his lip curled ever so slightly. "It seems she was mistaken."...
I felt my own lip curl in response. How rude! Who the Grimm was this peasant to judge me? I was wearing a Glenda original. Original! Not some fairy-godmother knockoff worn by those servant girls turned royal. I was a crown princess, for the love of fairy, and no one dismissed me. — Betsy Schow

Yee-ouch!" she cried as the pan clattered back onto the stovetop. She was shaking her left hand and staring at the venison, grateful she hadn't dropped their dinner on the floor, when Callahan appeared in the doorway to her kitchen. "What's wrong?" "I'm an idiot. I almost dropped the roast." "You burned yourself," he surmised as his gaze shifted from her to the pot on the stove. Crossing to the kitchen sink, he twisted the cold water faucet. "C'mere." When she moved close, he took her arm by the wrist and studied her hand as he guided it beneath the running water. "You grabbed your pan without a pad? You don't strike me as the careless sort." "I have my moments of ditziness," she replied. Ditziness — Emily March

Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rock; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disc; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn bloom. — Charlotte Bronte

Carefully measure the depth of water when crossing your Rubicon in life. The river was shallow when Julius Caesar crossed 2000 years ago. — Shahid Hussain Raja

By the beginning of March, K Company, 333rd Regiment, had reached the Rhine. The men settled down in the village of Krefeld to await Montgomery's Operation Plunder, the crossing of the river; Monty was planning the operation with as much care as he had put into Operation Overlord, so the pause was a long one. By some miracle, the men found an undamaged high-rise apartment building in which everything worked - electricity, hot water, flush toilets, and telephones with dial tones. The had their first hot baths in four months. They found cigars and bottles go cognac. Pvt. Ray Bocarski, fluent in German, lit up, sat down in an easy chair, got a befuddled German operator on the phone, and talked his way through to a military headquarters in Berlin. He told the German officer he could expect K Company within the week. — Stephen E. Ambrose

The sky above us seems huge, vast. It's clear and crisp and visibility is so good that, when I look up, I feel like I'm staring at an inverted, endless ocean. I'm sure the blue is the colour of water above sand and the tiny, wispy clouds look like waves breaking over distant swells. I envy the birds I see overhead, zipping joyfully from left to right and so far above the death and decay that pollute the lower levels. A day like this should be enjoyed completely. I should be able to forget what dwells in the towns around us, I should find it in myself to dismiss what happened at that crossing, I should. — Jack Croxall

The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be. — Robert Fulghum

Peasant families ate pork, beef, or game only a few times a year; fowls and eggs were eaten far more often. Milk, butter, and hard cheeses were too expensive for the average peasant. As for vegetables, the most common were cabbage and watercress. Wild carrots were also popular in some places. Parsnips became widespread by the sixteenth century, and German writings from the mid-1500s indicate that beet roots were a preferred food there. Rutabagas were developed during the Middle Ages by crossing turnips with cabbage, and monastic gardens were known for their asparagus and artichokes. However, as a New World vegetable, the potato was not introduced into Europe until the late 1500s or early 1600s, and for a long time it was thought to be merely a decorative plant.

"Most people ate only two meals a day. In most places, water was not the normal beverage. In Italy and France people drank wine, in Germany and England ale or beer. — Patricia D. Netzley

Crossing the Fens by boat there comes the realisation that water not earth or sky is the natural element in this landscape. — Stephanie Green

Your breathing should flow gracefully,
like a river, like a watersnake crossing
the water, and not like a chain of rugged mountains or the gallop of a horse. To master our breath is to be in control of our bodies and minds. Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used. — Thich Nhat Hanh

There is ... nothing greater than touching the shore after crossing some great body of water knowing that I've done it with my own two arms and legs. — Diana Nyad

Alkaline water tastes dreadful and was the scourge of covered wagon parties crossing Wyoming for neither men nor beasts could drink it for fear of blistering their tonsils and suffering agonizing stomach cramps. — Annie Proulx

Would-be adoptive parents have to struggle for years through a bureaucratic obstacle course at an average cost of $30,000. — Foster Friess

People butcher history all the time, — Rebecca Skloot

Water, running - It was observed in ancient times that ghosts dislike crossing running water. In modern Britain this knowledge is sometimes used against them. In central London a net of artificial channels, or runnels, protects the main shopping district. On a smaller scale, some house-owners build open channels outside their front doors and divert the rainwater along them. — Jonathan Stroud

There are all kinds of things that can scare you every day. What if someone you know gets cancer? What if something happens to you sister or your friends or your parents? And what if you get hit by a car crossing the street or the kids at school find out what an unnatural freak you are and what if you go too far out in the lake and the water is over your head and what if there's a fire or a war?
And you can lie awake at night and worry about these things because it's scary and unpredictable, but it's REAL. It's possible.
-Mackie Doyle, The Replacement — Brenna Yovanoff