Crumbled Quotes & Sayings

And oh, /that's/ when I jumped him. Such willpower I'd had up to that very moment and it all crumbled. I kissed him, and Lord Almighty, he kissed me and we were both crying.
"This is going to be hard," he said. "This life we're choosing."
"Maybe so," I said, kissing him again, "but I'd prefer hard and wonderful any day over easy and run of the mill."
Dot to Walt on their interracial relationship. — Suzanne Brockmann

Do you realize the illicit sensuous delight I get from picking my nose? I always have, ever since I was a child. There are so many subtle variations of sensation. A delicate, pointed-nailed fifth finger can catch under dry scabs and flakes of mucous in the nostril and draw them out to be looked at, crumbled between fingers, and flicked to the floor in minute crusts. Or a heavier, determined forefinger can reach up and smear down-and-out the soft, resilient, elastic greenish-yellow smallish blobs of mucous, roll them round and jellylike between thumb and forefinger, and spread them on the undersurface of a desk or chair where they will harden into organic crusts. How many desks and chairs have I thus secretively befouled since childhood? Or sometimes there will be blood mingled with the mucous: in dry brown scabs, or bright sudden wet red on the finger that scraped too rudely the nasal membranes. God, what sexual satisfaction! — Sylvia Plath

I had grown up in a world that was dominated by immature age. Not by vigorous immaturity, but by immaturity that was old and tired and prudent, that loved ritual and rubric, and was utterly wanting in curiosity about the new and the strange. Its era has passed away, and the world it made has crumbled around us. Its finest creation, a code of manners, has been ridiculed and discarded. — Ellen Glasgow

I won't let that night ruin you forever. But it did, it broke me into a million pieces and blew them away in the wind, like crumbled leaves. — Jessica Sorensen

I left Kurdistan in April 2003 with the peshmerga, following their excited advance as Saddam's forces crumbled. First Kirkuk, then Mosul - where looters broke into the city museum and seized its Parthian sculptures - then Tikrit. I reported from Baghdad in month-long stints until the end of 2004. — Luke Harding

At home, my father ate all the most burnt pieces of toast. 'Yum!' he'd say, and 'Charcoal! Good for you!' and 'Burnt toast! My favorite!' and he'd eat it all up. When I was much older he confessed to me that he had not ever liked burnt toast, had only eaten it to prevent it from going to waste, and, for a fraction of a moment, my entire childhood felt like a lie, it was as if one of the pillars of belief that my world had been built upon had crumbled into dry sand. — Neil Gaiman

I went for the door and opened it, not wanting to see how much this corpse was willing to destroy to get into my bedroom. His body probably would've crumbled to pieces before he got in, and I had no clue how to get dead guy out of the carpet. — Kelly Hashway

The tears that kept Buttercup company the remainder of the day were not at all like those that had blinded her into the tree trunk. Those were noisy and hot; they pulsed. These were silent and steady and all they did was remind her that she wasn't good enough. She was seventeen, and every male she'd ever known had crumbled at her feet and it meant nothing. The one time it really mattered, she wasn't good enough. — William Goldman

Jean Valjean disconcerted him. All the axioms which had served him as points of support all his life long, had crumbled away in the presence of this man. Jean Valjean's generosity towards him, Javert, crushed him. — Victor Hugo

Corn Chowder This recipe is from Marjorie Hanks. She used to make it on the stove, but now that Luanne got her a slow cooker, she makes it this way. ½ cup diced cooked ham (or 6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled) 2 cups peeled, diced potatoes ½ cup chopped onion 2 ten-ounce packages frozen whole-kernel corn 1 can (16-ounces) cream-style corn 1 Tablespoon brown sugar 1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce 1 teaspoon Season Salt (see Mrs. Knudson's recipe on backmatter) ½ teaspoon black pepper 1 cup chicken broth Spray the crock of a 4-quart slow cooker with Pam. Combine all ingredients in the crock-pot and stir well. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours. Yield: Makes 4 hearty servings. — Joanne Fluke

I don't miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. — Neil Gaiman

The power of storytelling is exactly this: to bridge the gaps where everything else has crumbled. — Paulo Coelho

When she left, it was like someone had ripped my heart out, crumbled it up like a flimsy piece of loose leaf paper and crammed it back into my chest. It somehow managed to work, but it would never, ever feel the same. — Steph Campbell

But there was nothing. No village or town as far as her eyes could strain. Nowhere for her saviours to come from and take her to; just fields and trees and the weeping arc of the river Greave all the way to the horizon. Just like in the books, Greaveburn was all there was; building and building until streets were foundations, roofs were floors, constantly climbing away from itself. now that Abrasia saw it, her dream of escape crumbled completely like an ancient map in her fingers. The horizon was the world's edge and there was nothing beyond it but mist and falling.

Greaveburn stood alone on this little circle of earth, the river running around and into itself like a snake eating its tail. And Abrasia was doomed to watch the sun and stars trade places for all eternity. — Craig Hallam

Remember that, so that next time you can just agree with whatever I say and we'll be fine. Though he didn't open his eyes, one corner of his mouth curled, ever so slightly. It was what I was hoping for. For a moment, the barriers had crumbled and we were all right again. — Julie Kagawa

But that miracle would eventually arrive, as it always had, and the landscape would turn from brown to green within hours under the kiss of the rain. And there were other colours that would follow the green; yellows, blues, reds would appear in patches across the veld as if great cakes of dye had been crumbled and scattered by an unseen hand. — Alexander McCall Smith

And just as your beautiful skyscrapers were destroyed and caused your grief, beautiful buildings and precious homes crumbled over their owners in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq by American weapons ... Americans should feel the pain they have inflicted on other peoples of the world, so as when they suffer, they will find the right solution and the right path. — Saddam Hussein

If the mind is intensely eager, everything can be accomplished - mountains can be crumbled into atoms. — Swami Vivekananda

I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia. — William, Saroyan

One of the themes in my novels is that our crises can turn into blessings. We can feel like our world has crumbled, but ten years down the road when we look back on that time, we can see God's hand at work. I love writing that theme into my books. — Terri Blackstock

Life was taking its vengeance on me, and that vengeance consisted merely in coming back, nothing more. Every case of madness involves something coming back. People who are possessed are not possessed by something that just comes but instead by something that comes back. Sometimes life comes back. If in me everything crumbled before that power, it is not because that power was itself necessarily an overwhelming one: it in fact had only to come, since it had already become too full-flowing a force to be controlled or contained - when it appeared it overran everything. And then, like after a flood, there floated a wardrobe, a person, a loose window, three suitcases. And that seemed like Hell to me, that destruction of layers and layers of human archaeology. — Clarice Lispector

Everything established, settled, everything to do with home and order and the common ground, has crumbled into dust and has been swept away in the general upheaval and reorganization of the whole of society. The whole human way of life has been destroyed and ruined. All that's left is the bare, shivering human soul, stripped to the last shred, the naked force of the human psyche for which nothing has changed because it was always cold and shivering and reaching out to its nearest neighbor, as cold and lonely as itself. — Boris Pasternak

Life itself had become disembodied. My family, the spine of my days, had crumbled. I was lost in invertebrate time. — Joseph O'Neill

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy. — Neil Gaiman

No one ever tells you that when your heart breaks, you can feel it. But you can. It feels like something has crumbled inside you and the pieces are falling into your stomach. It hurts more than any punch ever could. You stop breathing, and for a while you can't remember how. When you finally do, it feels like your throat has closed up, like you're trying to suck air through a straw. — Michael Thomas Ford

Business is many things, the least of which is the balance sheet. It is a fluid, ever changing, living thing, sometimes building to great peaks, sometimes falling to crumbled lumps. — Harold Geneen

It took years of wear and tear before idealism crumbled like so much bric-a-brac. — James Siegel

Her hair was well brushed that day and sheened darkly in contrast with the lusterless pallor of her neck and arms. She wore the striped tee shirt which in his lone fantasies he especially liked to peel off her twisting torso. The oilcloth was divided into blue and white squares. A smear of honey stained what remained of the butter in its cool crock.
'All right. And the third Real Thing?'
She considered him. A fiery droplet in the wick of her mouth considered him. A three-colored velvet violet, of which she had done an aquarelle on the eve, considered him from its fluted crystal. She said nothing. She licked her spread fingers, still looking at him.
Van, getting no answer, left the balcony. Softly her tower crumbled in the sweet silent sun. — Vladimir Nabokov

There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books. — Charles Simic

The Fifth Brother lived in a housing development, and his room was guarded by a crackhead with six arms, holding (in descending order, and going right to left) a dirty razor, a scale, a crumbled wad of five-dollar bills, a Saturday-night special, a human head, and nothing. Blood dripped from its mouth. "What is the secret to life?" it asked. "Crack," M said. "Correct!" the thing replied happily. "Do you have any?" "No," M said, but the crackhead with six arms let them by anyway. — Daniel Polansky

She was broken and helpless. Sciron, the son of Poseidon, had won again.
Hazel could hardly believe this guy had the same father as Percy Jackson. Then she remembered that Poseidon had a changeable personality, like the sea. Maybe his children reflected that. Percy was a child of Poseidon's better nature - powerful, but gentle and helpful, the kind of sea that sped ships safely to distant lands. Sciron was a child of Poseidon's other side - the kind of sea that battered relentlessly at the coastline until it crumbled away, or carried the innocents from shore and let them drown, or smashed ships and killed entire crews without mercy. — Rick Riordan

I'm a crumbled up piece of paper lying here, 'cause I remember it all too well — Taylor Swift

To discover someone was ordinary always struck Mills as a kind of betrayal. Whenever a man Mills presumed was gay turned out to be straight, the aura about him crumbled, the clues reassembling into the most indistinctive brand of human being - normal, hiding nothing, a mind like a weather vane that moved with the prevailing winds. — Christopher Bollen

When those who found this skeleton attempted to disengage it from that which it held in its grasp, it crumbled to dust. — Victor Hugo

What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh! — Agnes Repplier

When the Habsburg State crumbled to pieces in 1918 the Austrian Germans instinctively raised an outcry for union with their German fatherland. That was the voice of a unanimous yearning in the hearts of the whole people for a return to the unforgotten home of their fathers. — Adolf Hitler

I used to believe, bless my naive little heart, that I had something to offer the robbed dead. Not revenge-there's no revenge in the world that could return the tiniest fraction of what they've lost-and not justice, whatever that means, but the one thing left to give them: the truth. I was good at it. I had one, at least, of the things that make a great detective: the instinct for truth, the inner magnet whose pull tells you beyond any doubt what's dross, what's alloy, and what's the pure, uncut metal. I dug out the nuggets without caring when they cut my fingers and brought them in my cupped hands to lay on graves, until I found out-Operation Vestal again-how slippery they were, how easily they crumbled, how deep they sliced and, in the end, how very little they were worth. — Tana French

That Figure so impressd it self upon my Mind that I have been in a manner walking towards it all my Life. Then I peered into Wendel Dietterlin his Architectura, and there were unveiled to me the several Orders: of the Tuscan, which is now mine own, I was then mov'd by its Strangeness and Awefulness; the obscured Shapes, the Shaddowes and the massie Openings so in-chanted my Spirit that when looking on them I imagined my self to be lock'd in some dark and Enclosed space. The heavinesse of Stone did so oppress me that I was close to Extinction, and I fancied that I could see in the Engraver's lines the sides of Demons, crumbled Walls, and half-humane Creatures rising from the Dust. There was some thing that waited for me there, already in Ruines. — Peter Ackroyd

It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. — Bram Stoker

In the nineteenth year and the eleventh month
speak your tattered Kaddish for all suicides:
Praise to life though it crumbled in like a tunnel
on ones we knew and loved
Praise to life though its windows blew shut
on the breathing-room of ones we knew and loved
Praise to life though ones we knew and loved
loved it badly, too well, and not enough
Praise to life though it tightened like a knot
on the hearts of ones we thought we knew loved us
Praise to life giving room and reason
to ones we knew and loved who felt unpraisable.
Praise to them, how they loved it, when they could. — Adrienne Rich

Some part of me remembers what snow is, but this is the first time my new mind has seen it. It softens the crumbled sidewalks and turns rusty rooftops white. It's beautiful. It crunches under my feet as I move toward the house, longing to understand. — Isaac Marion

I have been running all about; I have knocked again at all the doors of my youth and desired to enter in there; I thought, surely it must admit me again, for I am still young and have wished so much to forget; but it fled always before me like a will-o'-the-wisp; it fell away without a sound; it crumbled like tinder at my lightest touch. And I could not understand.
Surely here at least something of it must remain? I attempted it again and again, and as a result made myself merely ridiculous and wretched. But now I know. I know now that a still, silent war has ravaged this country of my memories also; I know now it would be useless for me to look farther. Time lies between like a great gulf; I cannot get back. There is nothing for it; I must go forward, march onward, anywhere; it matters nothing, for I have no goal — Erich Maria Remarque

When he threaded his fingers through her hair and tugged her lips to his, she had melted in his arms, crumbled into infinite pieces, and allowed every single one of them to merge into him. Her — Sonali Dev

The real tragedy is that we're all human beings, and human beings have a sense of dignity. Any domination by one human over another leads to a loss of some part of his dignity. Is one's dignity that big it can be crumbled away like that? — Yusuf Idris

Be crumbled.
So wild flowers will come up where you are.
You have been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender. — Rumi

The aristocracy had crumbled in her hands; the power vacuum she purchased was a good decision. — Charli Frisky

It was a very aged, ghostly place; the church had been built many hundreds of years ago, and had once had a convent or monastery attached; for arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and fragments of blackened walls, were yet standing-, while other portions of the old building, which had crumbled away and fallen down, were mingled with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, as if they too claimed a burying-place and sought to mix their ashes with the dust of men. — Charles Dickens

Partition is after all only an old fortress of crumbled masonry - held together with the plaster of fiction. — Eamon De Valera

We lose track of everything, and of everyone, even ourselves. The facts of my father's life are less known to me than those of the life of Hadrian. My own existence, if I had to write of it, would be reconstructed by me from externals, laboriously, as if it were the life of someone else: I should have to turn to letters, and to the recollections of others, in order to clarify such uncertain memories. What is ever left but crumbled walls, or masses of shade? — Marguerite Yourcenar

But that was how it went sometimes, the English language, when you really needed it, crumbled to clay in your mouth. — Marisha Pessl

Words of war, on a piece of paper. Where peace is torn off, crumbled and toss in the waste basket. — Anthony Liccione

When I experienced altered states of consciousness, my whole philosophical structure crumbled, and that terrified me. And what scared me the most was the realisation that death was not the end! — Susan Schneider

The Bible is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies. This Bible is built mainly out of fragments of older Bibles that had their day and crumbled to ruin. So it noticeably lacks in originality, necessarily. Its three or four most imposing and impressive events all happened in earlier Bibles; there are only two new things in it: hell, for one, and that singular heaven I have told you about. — Mark Twain

I shut up everything inside. Everything." Words ground out through clenched teeth. "I thought if I could hold it, just hold it, it would be fine. But it's not."
"Why?" she asked. "Why are you losing control so badly?"
The answer, when it came, broke Sascha's heart.
"Hawke." It was an almost soundless whisper.
"Oh, Sienna." She stroked her hand over the girl's hair, even as her mind worked at piercing speed. "Has it been cumulative?"
Sienna nodded. "The second I met him, everything crumbled, my shields, my conditioning, everything! — Nalini Singh

Jock put his shoulder to the framework and the whole thing crumbled inward with a crash of glass.
"Rotten as touch-wood," he said. "This place would never stand a siege. — John Buchan

At the core of 'Star Trek' is Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future. So much of science-fiction is about a dystopian society with human civilization having crumbled. He had an affirmative, shining, positive view of the future. — George Takei

One of the earliest and most vivid memories of Robin's childhood was of the day that the family dog had been put down. She herself had been too young to understand what her father was saying; she took the continuing existence of Bruno, her oldest brother's beloved Labrador, for granted. Confused by her parents' solemnity, she had turned to Stephen for a clue as to how to react, and all security had crumbled, for she had seen, for the first time in her short life, happiness and comfort drain out of his small and merry face, and his lips whiten as his mouth fell open. She had heard oblivion howling in the silence that preceded his awful scream of anguish, and then she had cried, inconsolably, not for Bruno, but for the terrifying grief of her brother. — Robert Galbraith

His whole being radiates a pure, wild sweetness, flitting through night woods with little melodious cries, on some cryptic errand. There is also an aura of doom and sadness about this trusting little creature. He has been abandoned many times over the centuries, left to die in cold city alleys, in hot noon vacant lots, pottery shards, nettles, crumbled mud walls. Many times he has cried for help in vain. — William S. Burroughs

BACKYARD GARDEN SALAD In wartime, patriotic families cultivated "Victory Gardens" to promote self-sufficiency and help the war effort. 4 cups mixed greens 1/4 cup fresh sprigs of dill 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves 4 large basil leaves, rolled up and thinly sliced crosswise 1 large lemon, halved 1/4 cup fruity olive oil pinch of salt fresh ground black pepper to taste 1 cup toasted walnuts 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese 1 cup fresh edible flowers; choose from bachelor's buttons, borage, calendulas, carnations, herb flowers (basil, chives, rosemary, thyme), nasturtiums, violas, including pansies and Johnny-jump-ups, stock Toss salad greens and herbs in a large bowl. Squeeze lemon juice (without the seeds) over the greens and season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss again. Add walnuts and feta and toss well. Divide salad and pansies among four serving plates and serve. (Source: Adapted from California Bountiful) — Susan Wiggs

If you're dealing with some ancient ruins, He was there when they crumbled. He knows every detail. He knows exactly how you've been affected, and His expertise is reconstruction. After all, Christ was a carpenter by trade. Nothing has ever been allowed to crumble in a Christian's life or heritage that God cannot reconstruct and use. — Beth Moore

It was not her dream that chilled him, but that she did not weep as she told it. As a hero, he understood weeping women and knew how to make them stop crying
generally you killed something
but her calm terror confused and unmanned him, while the shape of her face crumbled the distant dignity he had been so pleased at maintaining. When he spoke again, his voice was young and stumbling. — Peter S. Beagle

YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!' Gaia crumbled to sand, only to get blasted by more flames. Her body melted into a lump of glass, shattered, then re-formed again as human. 'I AM ETERNAL!'
'Eternally annoying!' Leo yelled, and he urged Festus higher. — Rick Riordan

There was a moment of hesitation in which Joe looked into her eyes, and she looked back without flinching. Many a time, he had been at the same game with her, and she had always crumbled, bowing to his will. Now, he must have realized he was looking into the eyes of a stranger. She was someone he could not recognize, a foreigner inhabiting the body of that old Clairey, the girl he had abused, intimidated, and broken. Clairey decided then and there she would no longer cower before him. It was almost as if she were daring him to strike her in their unspoken exchange. — Tracy Winegar

What he'd wanted before had crumbled away, leaving the truth of what Kennedy did to him. It was new, and there was a long way to go before it could be right, but that was the path he wanted to take. — Natalie J. Damschroder

His lips thinned in frustration like I should already know the answer. He inched closer until his knee touched mine, his eyes, curious and intense, boring into me. "Because you move like fire rushing across a floor," he said his voice hushed, velvety smooth, "like flames licking up a wall." The rest of the world crumbled away as he lifted my chin. "Your energy is liquid and hot. Even from a distance you burn, you scorch anyone who gets too close. You are wine on my tongue and honey in my veins, and I cannot get enough of you." He leaned forward and whispered into my ear. His warm breath sent shivers cascading over my body. "You intoxicate me, Lorelei McAlister. You will be my downfall. — Darynda Jones

And then a strong gust blew against her, and her feet slipped just slightly. She jerked forward against the railing, ever so softly. But, rotten, it crumbled like paper, and May and Kitty went sliding forward, right through it. May scrambled to stop herself, but it was too late.
They slid a few more feet, then fell off the edge of the roof.
They looked like blackbirds faliing out through the sky. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

That was the problem with having walls so hard and high and unscalable ... When they came down, they crumbled completely, shattering into nothingness. — L.J.Smith

Percy glanced over. He saw the fallen giant and seemed to understand what was happening. He yelled something that was lost in the wind, probably: Go!
Then he slammed Riptide into the ice at his feet. The entire glacier shuddered. Ghosts fell to their knees. Behind Percy, a wave surged up from the bay-a wall of gray water even taller than the glacier. Water shot from the chasms and crevices in the ice. As the wave hit, the back half of the camp crumbled. The entire edge of the glacier peeled away, cascading into the void-carrying buildings, ghosts, and Percy Jackson over the edge. — Rick Riordan

When the moon shall have faded out from the sky, and the sun shall shine at noonday a dull cherry red, and the seas shall be frozen over, and the icecap shall have crept downward to the equator from either pole ... when all the cities shall have long been dead and crumbled into dust, and all life shall be on the last verge of extinction on this globe; then, on a bit of lichen, growing on the bald rocks beside the eternal snows of Panama, shall be seated a tiny insect, preening its antennae in the glow of the worn-out sun, the sole survivor of animal life on this our earth - a melancholy bug. — William Jacob Holland

If the future was bared before you, would it still be yours? If the past could chase you, would you run from it? If the world crumbled tonight, would you carve your own? — Nicholas Rinth

I have made you some things, for when you get back. I understand now, all the baking you sent me, stale and crumbled in brown paper and rough twine. Now you're away and I am here. So I will make and make until you get back to remind you, and myself: there are reasons to come home. — Emma Hooper

When Mama prayed, lives were changed. Not much more than five foot tall, but mountains big and small crumbled all away. — Randy Travis

Why spend your whole life on the high seas looking for treasure,' Peter asked, talking to the clouds as he scaled a rope up what remained of the half-crumbled mast, 'when you could have a promised pay check in exchange for all the life you'd live between nine-and-five. — Audrey Greathouse

Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I don't know how long I sat there without moving, thinking, or breathing. It probably wasn't as long as it felt, because the building where I sat had not crumbled into dust, and the sun had not turned cold and fallen from the sky. But it was still a very long time before a single jagged thought managed to penetrate the cold and empty vault between my ears, and when it finally did register I still couldn't do any more than take a large and sharp breath and let that thought echo around all alone. Closer — Jeff Lindsay

Meditteranean Summer Salad Serves: 5 Ingredients: 2 tablespoons lime juice 1 teaspoon oregano Pepper to taste ½ teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons olive oil ¼ cup crumbled cheese ½ cup chopped red bell peppers ½ cup sliced kalamata olives ½ cup diced cucumbers 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes 2 cups cooked quinoa Method: Mix all ingredients together Serve cold: Cooking Tips: Mix oil and juice before adding to salad Variation: Use lemon juice or vinegar in place of lime juice — Jenny Allan

I went into the living room and looked down at my mother's torn body and shook my head. It was surreal. I guess some people in that situation would have crumbled, some would have cried, but I'd emotionally disconnected from life a long time ago. For that, I had to thank the skeletal bitch on the floor, with her greedy rodent soul and her short-tempered ape-mate in the kitchen. If anything, her death was a belated answer to old prayers, with a bit of an unexpected mess. — Bobby Adair

What we call wisdom is the result of all the wisdom of past ages. Our best institutions are like young trees growing upon the roots of the old trunks that have crumbled away. — Henry Ward Beecher

When you're struggling, or doubting, or fearful, or feel as if your foundation has crumbled, don't ever underestimate the power of praise! Don't just think about it. Do it. Pull out all the stops. Make praise your first response to fearful situations in your life. God wants us to praise Him at all times, but especially when we are afraid or discouraged. When we do, not only will He take away our fear, but He will also give us joy (Psalm 34:1-5). Fear will tell you things that are not God's truth for your life. Fear denies that God's presence is powerful and fully active in your life. It cancels all hope and faith in God's desire to work in your behalf. But the truth is that faith, prayer, praise, and the Word of God will conquer your every fear. — Stormie O'martian

Without the brandy, it's just ... crumbled up tes leaves floatin' in warm
water ... and what fun would that be?
Aunt Maddy from Angela's Coven #covenbooks — Bruce Jenvey

Everything she touched either crumbled to dust or dissolved into a powder that gave off spores. The — Michael Scott

I was only twelve, but through the slow, inevitable burn of a thousand sunrises and sunsets, a thousand maps traced and retraced, I had already absorbed the valuable precept that everything crumbled into itself eventually, and to cultivate a crankiness about this was just a waste of time. — Reif Larsen

He noticed that she threw away the crumbled bus ticket on the street as soon as she got down. He picked it up and put it in his pocket along with his own a memorabilia of their first date together, just like a strand of her hair he would find later on his shirt and the broken pen cap that she would go on to search in the laboratory and so many other such small things which he would collect. — Faraaz Kazi

Sad as it is, we cannot conceal the fact that in spite of our companionship with flowers we have not risen very far above the brute. Scratch the sheepskin and the wolf within us will soon show his teeth. It has been said that a man at ten is an animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal. Perhaps he becomes a criminal because he has never ceased to be an animal. Nothing is real to us but hunger, nothing sacred except our own desires. Shrine after shrine has crumbled before our eyes; but one altar if forever preserved, that whereon we burn incense to the supreme idol,-ourselves. Our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make sacrifice to him. We boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is Matter that has enslaved us. What atrocities do we not perpetrate in the name of culture and refinement! — Kakuzo Okakura

By speech first, but far more by writing, man has been able to put something of himself beyond death. In tradition and in books an integral part of the individual persists, for it can influence the minds and actions of other people in different places and at different times: a row of black marks on a page can move a man to tears, though the bones of him that wrote it are long ago crumbled to dust. In truth, the whole progress of civilization is based upon this power. — Julian Huxley

Who wants to see the Future, who ever does? A man can face the Past, but to think - the pillars crumbled, you say? And the sea empty, and the canals dry, and the maidens dead, and the flowers withered?" The Martian was silent, but then he looked ahead. "But there they are. I see them. Isn't that enough for me? They wait for me now, no matter what you say. — Ray Bradbury

Suddenly I was a kid in the hall standing outside my locker about to head to Math. But that was how it went sometimes, the English language, when you really needed it, crumbled to clay in your mouth. That's when all the real things were said. — Marisha Pessl

A guard spoke. "Stop, both of you! You may not enter the castle with weapons."
Tenzin drew her sword in the space of a heartbeat, sliced off the head of the guard who spoke, and kept walking as the body crumbled to the ground. "Oh, really? — Elizabeth Hunter

The great military leaders of the past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Oxtail soup, summer greens tossed with pecans, grapes, red fennel, and crumbled cheese, hot crab pie, spiced squash, and quails drowned in butter. — George R R Martin

He held his eyes on her and saw the moment the girl of stone cracked, crumbled, and broke. He saw the quick inhale of breath, the loosening of defiance in her eyes, the tightening of her forehead, in between her eyebrows, her bottom lip curling slightly underneath a tooth. It was a small act, no burst of tears, no wail of drama. — Alessandra Torre

Seven thousand of them were indicted and arraigned, and then they entered the maw of the criminal justice system - right here - through the gateway into Gibraltar, where the vans were lined up. That was about 150 new cases, 150 more pumping hearts and morose glares, every week that the courts and the Bronx County District Attorney's Office were open. And to what end? The same stupid, dismal, pathetic, horrifying crimes were committed day in and day out, all the same. What was accomplished by assistant D.A.'s, by any of them, through all this relentless stirring of the muck? The Bronx crumbled and decayed a little more, and a little more blood dried in the cracks. The Doubts! One thing was accomplished for sure. The system was fed, and those vans brought in the chow. — Tom Wolfe

In the last 14 years Jewry has achieved positions of influence which it has grossly misused morally, financially and politically in an unheard-of manner, with the result that the German people crumbled morally, financially, and politically. — Ernst Hanfstaengl

Sprinkle a mixture of cooked, crumbled bacon, chopped fresh herbs, and bread crumbs on top of baked or grilled ½-inch-thick slices of summer tomatoes or Vidalia onions and bake or grill them until the topping is golden brown. — Peter Kaminsky

Love
My soul was a light-blue gown, sky-coloured;
I left it on a cliff by the sea
and naked I came to you, resembling a woman.
And like a woman I sat at your table
and drank a toast with wine and breathed in the scent of several roses.
You found me beautiful, resembling something you'd seen dreaming,
I forgot everything, I forgot my childhood and my homeland,
I knew only that your caresses held me captive.
And, smiling, you took up a mirror and bade me look.
I saw that my shoulders were made of dust and crumbled away,
I saw that my beauty was sick and had no desire other than to - disappear.
Oh, hold me close in your arms, so tightly that I need nothing. — Edith Sodergran

A soul mate was the person who wielded the greatest power imaginable over you, the person who cupped your happiness in their hands. If the worst happened and the relationship crumbled, they used the power you so foolishly lent them to crush your dreams under their heels as they walked out of your life. Those same hands that had so delicately held your joy were plunged in your chest as they ripped your heart out by its roots. — Hailey Edwards

The politeness was unbearable. They avoided touching each other, careful as strangers on a train ... A family can go on for years without the love that once bound it together, like a lovely old wall that stays standing long after rain has crumbled the mortar. — Kathleen Winter

Most people don't understand what a library does for me and I've tried to explain it to them. All I know is that I feel energized when I'm in one. My pulse quickens when I walk through the the stacks. I feel like an explorer surveying an uncharted shore. Lost worlds are here waiting to be discovered. Ancient worlds; once glorious, not crumbled. Future worlds; no more substantial than the numbers or ideas or words of those who dream them. Mythical worlds. Worlds of limitless dimensions.
Libraries are medieval forests masking opportunity and danger; every aisle is a path, every catalog reference a clue to the location of the Holy Grail. — Jack Cavanaugh

It was like trying to have a conversation with a distracted and very soggy scone. Every time he pushed in one direction the earl either oozed or crumbled. — Gail Carriger

... I suddenly discerned at my feet, crouching among the rocks for protection against the heat, the marine goddesses for whom Elstir had lain in wait and whom he had surprised there, beneath the dark glaze as lovely as Leonardo would have painted, the marvelous Shadows, sheltering furtively, nimble and silent, ready at the first glimmer of light to slip behind the stone, to hide in a cranny, and prompt, once the menacing ray had passed, to return to the rock or the seaweed over whose torpid slumbers they seemed to be keeping vigil, beneath the sun that crumbled the cliffs and the etiolated ocean, motionless lightfoot guardians darkening the water's surface with their viscous bodies and the attentive gaze of their deep blue eyes. — Marcel Proust