Cushion Quotes & Sayings

Love is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end. Imagine, a suspended ocean, riding on a cushion of ancient secrets. — Rumi

I invested. I wanted to cushion the future. I'm a financial success! — Joanna Kerns

Love is a fine cushion to rest upon, but only hate can make you a better person. — Joe Abercrombie

You know full well we are exploiters. You know full well we have taken the gold and minerals and then oil from the "new continents," and shipped them back to the old metropolises. Not without excellent results in the shape of palaces, cathedrals, and centers of industry; and then when crisis loomed, the colonial markets were there to cushion the blow or divert it. Stuffed with wealth, Europe granted humanity de jure to all its inhabitants: for us, a man means an accomplice, for we have all profited from colonial exploitation. — Frantz Fanon

Sometimes, sitting there on the cushion failing to watch your breath, it can feel like you're the only weirdo weird enough to be wasting your time in this way. But you're not! There are generations of weirdos, monasteries full of them, and we have the benefit of their accumulated wisdom. — Jay Michaelson

I grabbed Sabine's shoulder. If you stick me again, I'm going to make your head my personal pin cushion. — Andrea Cremer

Is there anywhere else to sleep tonight ... Anywhere?' I pleaded.
There's Mei's office, but you'll have to sleep on the floor I'm afraid.' Mei was one of the Ward 9D dietitians.
'I'll sleep on the floor any day. I'm used to it back in the Islands,' I laughed tiredly.
I settled down on the floor. The three rugs I had brought to cushion my back worked surprisingly well. It was almost more comfortable than the thin mats on the cold concrete floors of the fales in Samoa. The idea of sleeping in someone's office was the best idea I had had all year. I decided that I would keep this secret to myself. — Ta'afuli Andrew Fiu

The value of solitude - one of its values - is, of course, that there is nothing to cushion against attacks from within, just as there is nothing to help balance at times of particular stress or depression ... — May Sarton

Sam was almost grateful for his fleshy buttocks. Fat men take a cushion with them wherever they go, he thought. — George R R Martin

Mom and Dad sleep soundly atop the white cushion, her in his lap and their legs tangled together. His handsome profile is scruffy, his nose buried in her long, pinkish blond hair. The strands twitch, alive with magic. Her gauzy wings are folded behind her like a butterfly's at rest.
They look so lovely together, the White knight and his fairy bride, in one another's arms at last. In spite of all they went through to reach this place, their love never faltered. They deserve this more than anyone I know. — A.G. Howard

Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings. — Carl Sandburg

I can't miss an episode of 'The Apprentice'. It is car-crash T.V. Sometimes I find myself hiding behind a cushion. — April Pearson

herself into the darkest corner and lay her head against the inner cushion as she unscrewed the vodka. This was going to be a long night, — Viv Daniels

Everyone is isolated from everyone else. The concept of society is like a cushion to protect us from the knowledge of that isolation. A fiction that serves as an anesthetic. — Paul Bowles

The book [Night manager] is amazing. It is amazing to act in any book adaptation, because a book gives you so many secrets and details that don't necessarily get shot in an adaptation. They give you a cushion underneath everything. The detail in the character, the detail in the tone. — Tom Hiddleston

Rule books are paper - they will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal. — Ernest K. Gann

Raise as little as you can to get you to something that you can show - plus maybe a quarter or two so you have a little bit of cushion - and then raise some more money. Raise as little - not as much - as you can because that's the most expensive equity you're going to sell. — Douglas Leone

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ZAZEN First of all, you have to sit down, which you're probably already doing. The traditional way is to sit on a zafu cushion on the floor with your legs crossed, but you can sit on a chair if you want to. The important thing is just to have good posture and not to slouch or lean on anything. Now you can put your hands in your lap and kind of stack them up, so that the back of your left hand is on the palm of your right hand, and your thumb tips come around and meet on top, making a little round circle. The place where your thumbs touch should line up with your bellybutton. Jiko says this way of holding your hands is called hokkai jo-in,113 and it symbolizes the whole cosmic universe, which you are holding on your lap like a great big beautiful egg. — Ruth Ozeki

I do needlepoint from kits. I give them as gifts to people in the form of cushion covers and they are often speechless with horror. — Lynne Truss

Speaking from experince, there are people who have too much space between their ears, and given the time, do nothing but free fall forever inside their heads. It's a spooky thing to be left alone inside an angry inner-verse.
Drugs redirect the fall. They cushion it. Give you a parachute. Or maybe just a flashlight and scuba gear. I don't know how you look at the inside of your head
what metaphor you choose
but for those of us with endless yawning stretches of interior and nothing but nothing to stop us from getting lost in it, drugs can be wonderfully helpful.
For a time. — James St. James

We 'can't' always 'cushion' our views..
'Soften' the stance..
'Straight Talk' involves least effort..
No 'beating about the bush'..
Say it as it is..
Ofcourse, stay ready to be unpopular! — Abha Maryada Banerjee

Guilt isn't in cat vocabulary. They never suffer remorse for eating too much, sleeping too long or hogging the warmest cushion in the house. They welcome every pleasurable moment as it unravels and savour it to the full until a butterfly or falling leaf diverts their attention. They don't waste energy counting the number of calories they've consumed or the hours they've frittered away sunbathing.
Cats don't beat themselves up about not working hard enough. They don't get up and go, they sit down and stay. For them, lethargy is an art form. From their vantage points on top of fences and window ledges, they see the treadmills of human obligations for what they are - a meaningless waste of nap time. — Helen Brown

No season lives here. This space has quite successfully shut out any such interference. The cunning designer saw to it that there is not even a mirror in which the reader might contemplate his own appearance or anxiously search for the marks of age. The climate is grammatical. Nothing here but books, as if I were swaddled in them, as if the porous walls of books were by now almost a second skin. Or as if they provided a padding like the walls of madhouses, a cushion constructed of the language of the dead. — Geoffrey O'Brien

Deep ridges crossed his forehead like terraces in a Thai hillside, tucks in a leather cushion, troughs across a bloodhound's jowls. — Dennis Vickers

I feel that buzz of happiness, that sense of having found the right words and put them in a line. It's like lifting off in an airplane: you're on the ground, on the ground, on the ground... and then you're up, riding on a magical cushion of air and prince of all you survey. — Stephen King

There is nothing wrong with anger. Anger is a beautiful emotion, as valid and rich as joy or laughter. But you have been taught to repress your anger. Your anger has been condemned. If anger is unexpressed, it will slowly poison you. The key is to know how to express your anger. Do not throw it out onto any one. No one is responsible for your anger. Simply express your anger. Beat up a cushion. Go for a run. Express your anger to a tree. Dance your anger. Enjoy it. — Leonard Jacobson

When I was 21 years old, I had a job playing Santa Claus in a shopping centre in Sacramento. I was rail thin, so it's not like I was a traditional Santa Claus even then. I had a square stomach; that was the shape of the sofa cushion that I had stuffed into my pants. — Tom Hanks

With the curtains clamped tight, he would sleep on the floor with a cushion beneath his head, as the fire slipped away and turned to ash.
In the morning he would return to the basement.
A voiceless human.
The Jewish rat, back to his hole. — Markus Zusak

The short-term international capital market is shrunken and erratic, and cannot be relied upon to cushion the effects of tendencies to disequilibrium in the balance of payments. — Gunnar Myrdal

On every commercial flight, the traveler is told, "Your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device". The question is, why doesn't the plane just become a boat? — Sam Ewing

There was a bright orange glove down there, the kind that lobstermen use. There was even a big lavender sofa cushion. — Carol J. Perry

Diplomats willing to sit for an interview usually prefer the terra firma of CNN over the whoopee cushion of Comedy Central. — Kevin Bleyer

What are you doing?" He massaged my feet with his fingers. "I have big hands. Your tiny little fingers will accomplish nothing. His ministrations were strong but not painful. I wanted to argue but I couldn't. It felt so good. I sank into the cushion and released a loud sigh. "Oh my god..." It came out as a moan rather than a painful groan. He chuckled "I'm good at everything. — E.L. Todd

Once I started trying to give positive reviews, though, I began to understand how much happiness I took from the joyous ones in my life
and how much effort it must take for them to be consistently good=tempered and positive. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. We nonjoyous types suck energy and cheer from the joyous ones; we rely on them to buoy us with their good spirit and to cushion our agitation and anxiety. At the same time, because of a dark element in human nature, we're sometimes provoked to try to shake the enthusiastic, cheery folk out of their fog of illusion
to make them see that the play was stupid, the money was wasted, the meeting was pointless. Instead of shielding their joy, we blast it. — Gretchen Rubin

Maybe the job of a mother is not to shelter but to bear witness as a child hits full force . . . and then to cushion the fall when it's over. Mariah's — Jodi Picoult

A couple of minutes later, the turbolift doors hissed open. Spock was standing in the turbolift. He had the air of a man who had been in an extreme hurry, but who had been stopped in midrush and given something he didn't understand. He was holding a small flat cushion. — Diane Duane

Grass is food for elephants, but a cushion for lions. — Matshona Dhliwayo

I read the Koran and it appealed to me. At the time I was agnostic and it really breathed spiritually back into me. For me it's really a cushion; it's cool, I'm cool with it. — Q-Tip

What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it. - A substance in a cushion — Gertrude Stein

Little James Herondale, age 2, was intact holding a dagger quite well. He stabbed it into a sofa cushion sending out a burst of feathers. "Ducks", he said pointing to the feathers. Tessa swiftly removed the dagger from his tiny hand and replaced it with a wooden spoon. James had recently become very attached to his wooden spoon and carried it with him everywhere often refusing to go to sleep without it — Cassandra Clare

And you just now say something?" Tink vaulted over the couch. Like, jumped up and cleared the back and landed, standing on the center cushion.

I gaped at him. "How in the world did your towel stay on for that when I can't even get one to stay wrapped around me when I get out of the shower?"

"Magic," he replied. "Seriously. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Cushion the painful effects of hard blows by keeping the enthusiasm going strong, even if doing so requires struggle. — Norman Vincent Peale

I'm hyper-aware of my last name and it's lack of Derby or Horowtiz-esque sonorousness. Moffett sounds like a type of couch cushion. I guess I'm hoping to start a wave of first-name usage. — Kevin Moffett

This is insane. You realize that, right?"
"Only if someone gets hurt."
"Someone always gets hurt, Hayes."
He said nothing as he slid his fingers in between mine, squeezing my hand. The intimacy of the gesture threw me. I had not held a man's hand since Daniel's, and Hayes's felt foreign. Large, smooth, capable; the coolness of an unexpected ring.
I shifted in my skirt, legs sticking to the leather cushion. I needed to get out of there, and yet I did not want it to end. — Robinne Lee

The idle man is the devil's cushion. — Joseph Hall

Whats it like, to be in love? The servants speak of it when they think I can't hear. I only wonder."
Lia turned around and tossed the cushion back to the chaise lounge. She found she didn't have an answer to Mari's question. She couldn't say what she'd heard her sisters always say, It's thrilling, or It's bliss, or He makes me so happy. She raised her head and swallowed the strangeness in her throat, walking to the fireplace, to the pianoforte, pressing a finger against the honey-buffed wood.
"It is," she said at last, "the most terrible feeling in the entire world."
And she meant it.
"Yes," the girl agreed, examining her face. "I think it must be. — Shana Abe

In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion. — Jack Kornfield

I find that balancing my life with my work with the kids at St. Jude, working on books, working on my career as an actor and taking time out for my husband and family help to cushion a lot of the blows. — Marlo Thomas

Fat men take a cushion with them wherever they go. — George R R Martin

You wake up at SeaTac.
I study the people on the laminated airline seat card. A woman floats in the ocean, her brown hair spread out behind her, her seat cushion clutched to her chest. The eyes are wide open, but the woman doesn't smile or frown. In another picture, people calm as Hindu cows reach up from their seats toward oxygen masks sprung out of the ceiling.
This must be an emergency.
Oh. — Chuck Palahniuk

I slump against the cushion. "How am I going to protect him, if I've completely alienated him? He thinks I'm creepy ... " I say sadly.
"You are not creepy," Reed says soothingly, taking my hand.
"You're not a good judge of creepy, Reed, since you're creepier than I am," I say warily, looking over at Zephyr when I hear him laughing at my comment. "I wouldn't laugh too hard, pal, because you're the creepiest one of us all. — Amy A. Bartol

In the bed of suspicion, no cushion can make a man to sleep — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Tom braced his hands on the cushion as Prophet took his pants down. His fingers dug into the fabric when Prophet's hands separated his ass cheeks and he tongued along his crack, speared his hole, ate him without mercy, leaving Tom to hump the couch. "If — S.E. Jakes

Drink reacts on its practitioners in conflicting ways. One brave can knock off a quart of Scotch and look and act as sober as Herbert Hoover. Another, after three Martinis, makes two-cushion carroms off the chaise lounge as he attempts to negotiate the bathroom. — Tallulah Bankhead

Georgeta cleared her throat, and pushed herself deeper into the sofa cushion.
"You know Penelope Stephanopoulos, Jasmira's best friend?" she asked.
"That Greek redhead with an attitude bigger than the Parthenon?" Erik snorted. — A.O. Peart

Please excuse the torn edges of this note. I am writing to you from inside the shack the Baudelaire orphans were forced to live in while at Prufrock Preparatory School, and I am afraid that some of the crabs tried to snatch my stationery away from me. On Sunday night, please purchase a ticket for seat 10-J at the Erratic Opera Company's performance of the opera Faute de Mieux. During Act Five, use a sharp knife to rip open the cushion of your seat. There you should find — Lemony Snicket

We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to. — Dave Eggers

I nestled into the nook of Mum's arm. Then lay on a cushion on her lap. I fell asleep like that. She's all bones and hard edges. She's never been comfortable, but she's always been there. — Nathan Filer

Great tragedies have great consequences. They ripple through the fabric of this world and the next. When the loss is too great for either world to bear, Everlost absorbs the shock, like a cushion between the two. — Neal Shusterman

We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning for the future, trying to predict the future, as if figuring it out will cushion the blow. But the future is always changing. The future is the home of our deepest fears and wildest hopes. But one thing is certain when it finally reveals itself. The future is never the way we imagined it — Shonda Rhimes

I had come to expect that Chinese friends would make financial decisions that I found uncomfortably risky: launching businesses with their savings, moving across the country without the assurance of a job. One explanation, which Weber and Hsee call "the cushion hypothesis," is that traditionally large Chinese family networks afford people confidence that they can turn to others for help if their risk-taking does not succeed. Another theory is more specific to the boom years. "The economic reforms undertaken by Deng Xiaoping were a gamble in themselves," Ricardo Siu, a business professor at the University of Macau, told me. "So people got the idea that taking a risk is not just okay; it has utility." For those who have come from poverty to the middle class, he added, "the thinking may be, If I lose half my money, well, I've lived through that. I won't be poor again. And in several years I can earn it back. But if I win? I'm a millionaire! — Evan Osnos

I cannot say your worships have delivered the matter well when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables [ ... ] our very priests must become mockers if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deserve not so honorable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entombed in an ass's packsaddle [ ... ] more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave with you. — William Shakespeare

There are only a few things investors can do to counteract risk: diversify adequately, hedge when appropriate, and invest with a margin of safety. It is a precisely because we do not and cannot know all the risks of an investment that we strive to invest at a discount. The bargain element helps to provide a cushion for when things go wrong. — Seth Klarman

The thorn in the cushion of the editorial chair. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Things don't go away. They become you. There is no end, as T.S. Eliot somewhere says, but addition: the trailing consequence of further days and hours. No freedom from the past, or from the future.
But we keep making our way, as we have to. We're all pretty much able to deal even with the worst that life can fire at us, if we simply admit that it is very difficult. I think that's the whole of the answer. We make our way, and effort and time give us cushion and dignity. And as we age, we're riding higher in the saddle, seeing more terrain. — Darin Strauss

The bigger the cushion, the better the pushin'. — Frank Zappa

There's nothing more I love than McDonald's dollar menu. With just the change I find between my couch cushions, I can eat something with the nutritional value of a couch cushion. — Stephen Colbert

We recall that to the Cherokee, as to other people who have noticed how long it sometimes takes for humans to develop fully, adulthood comes
if it is coming at all
at the age of fifty-two. — Alice Walker

Not being the sort to throw a book, she pounded her fist on her cushion. — Ellen Kushner

As you schedule individual tasks, give yourself a cushion. Mark the due date a few days ahead of the actual deadline so you have time to deal with changes or last-minute emergencies. — Harvey MacKay

I love my foot. If I had to send a part of myself to represent myself in some other country, or in some other way, I would amputate my foot and send it wrapped in white tissue on a silk-embroidered cushion. I would send my foot because it is me, more me than I'm willing to let on. — A.M. Homes

One sits uncomfortably on a too comfortable cushion. — Lillian Hellman

Now, suppose that a homeowner puts down only 3% of their own money or 3.5% for the FHA. That means if prices go down by only 3%, the house will be in negative equity and it would pay the homeowner just to walk away and say, "The house now is worth less than the mortgage I owe. I think I'm just going to move out and buy a cheaper house." So it's very risky when you have only a 3% or 3.5% equity for the loan. The bank really isn't left with much cushion as collateral. — Michael Hudson

In sitting on the meditation cushion and assuming the meditation posture, we connect ourselves with the present moment in this body and on this earth. — Jack Kornfield

As to sagacity, I should say that his judgement respecting the warmest place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible, his punctuality at meal times is admirable, and his pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders till they give him some of the best of what is going, indicates great firmness. — Thomas Huxley

When Mrs. Keane whispered, between contractions, that the baby was coming at least six weeks too soon, he shook his head and clucked his tongue, lifting the wet dish towel from her forehead and refolding it and then touching it gently to her cheeks. The dampness, and the perspiration, had darkened her hair and the pain had brought some color to her face. There was all about her a not unpleasant odor of oatmeal or wheat. He knelt beside the couch. When he leaned away, his T-shirt was wet with the amniotic fluid that had soaked her dress and the cushion beneath her. Her knees were already raised, her pale legs bare, and he asked, gently, if she would like him to check what was going on. She nodded and when the contraction had passed, added, "Modesty is always the first thing to go. — Alice McDermott

The couch was apparently built on the same principle as a Venus flytrap, because when I sat I was immediately sucked down into a deep plush cushion, and as I struggled to remain upright it occurred to me that this was on purpose, another silly little trick Acosta used to dominate people, like putting his desk in front of the bright window. Deborah apparently came to the same conclusion, because I saw her tighten her jaw, and pull herself forward with a jerk to perch awkwardly on the edge of the couch. — Jeff Lindsay

Our budget also reflects key components of our campaign. It's very much focused on stabilizing public services, restoring stability to public services and investing in job creation and economic diversification and, generally speaking, acting as a cushion during this economy, something fundamentally different than what the other parties proposed in the last election. — Rachel Notley

Valentine
my friends stitched it up with golden thread
like a red
satin pillow they gave me other whole ones too
roses and charms and red candles
milagros to repair the real one
they told me i was no longer allowed to give it away
a pretty pin cushion
a piece of mexican folk art
a hundred beating poems left unanswered
like a thing to wear around the neck
they said you must heal we will protect you
but i sat weeping at the computer forging ahead anyway
with the small stitched thing struggling in my chest
it knew that it had needed to be torn
so that it could recognize and receive the hundred kindnesses
traveling across three thousand miles at the speed of light
a storm of petals and beautiful words and tiny hearts to keep it
company — Francesca Lia Block

His sudden and utterly overwhelming panic was over almost before it began; but not quickly enough. In the midst of his brief yet total terror, the King of Pontus shat himself. It went everywhere, solid faeces mixed with what seemed an incredible amount of more liquid bowel contents, a stinking brown mess all over the gold-encrusted purple cloth of his cushion, trickling down the legs of his throne, running down his own legs into the manes of the golden lions upon the flaps of his boots, pooling and plopping on the deck around his feet when he jumped up. And there was nowhere to go! He could not conceal it from the amazed eyes of his attendants and officers, he could not conceal it from the sailors below amidships who had looked up instinctively to make sure their King was safe. — Colleen McCullough

Before you request my help, check underneath your couch cushion. Then call me. — The Searcher

He leapt onto the cushion now and curled into a skein of snoring yellow fur. — Molly MacRae

Could it be that many of our problems with prayer and much of our weakness in prayer come from the fact that we are not all on active duty, and yet we still try to use the transmitter? We have taken a wartime walkie-talkie and tried to turn it into a civilian intercom to call the servants for another cushion in the den. — John Piper

It's the basic obstacle of artificial ecosystems. In a normal evolutionary environment, there's enough diversity to cushion the system when something catastrophic happens. That's nature. Catastrophic things happen all the time. But nothing we can build has the depth. One thing goes wrong, and there's only a few compensatory pathways that can step in. They get overstressed. Fall out of balance. When the next one fails, there are even fewer paths, and then they're more stressed. It's a simple complex system. That's the technical name for it. Because it's simple, it's prone to cascades, and because it's complex, you can't predict what's going to fail. Or how. It's computationally impossible." Holden — James S.A. Corey

No, he mustn't think about it, or indeed about anything, and especially not about heroin, because heroin was the one thing that really worked, the only thing that stopped him scampering around in a hamster's wheel of unanswerable questions. Heroin was the cavalry. Heroin was the missing chair leg, made with such precision that it matched every splinter of the break. Heroin landed purring at the base of his skull, and wrapped itself darkly around his nervous system, like a black cat curling up on its favourite cushion. It was as soft and rich as the throat of a wood pigeon, or the splash of sealing wax onto a page, or a handful of gems slipping from palm to palm. — Edward St. Aubyn

Smite," she asked softly, "do you have any idea what to say to me in a situation like this?"
"Of course I do," he retorted. "I have plenty of ideas." He met her gaze ruefully. "Of course, they're all wrong, and so I'm totally at sea."
She patted the cushion next to her. He crossed the room and lowered himself down. And then, because he didn't seem inclined to do it himself, she picked up his hand and slid it around her shoulders. — Courtney Milan

The true essence of who you are, balances itself upon a cushion of purity, benevolence, and holiness. — Garey Gordon

Even love couldn't cushion a fall like ours. My love for Tristan was so big that I felt consumed by it, and even so, it was not enough to overpower our combined demons.
I struggled. I yelled and screamed. I scratched and kicked.
I fought like hell, but even the most determined fighters have to stop before they break.
No one could say I didn't fight for him, — R.K. Lilley

Well after that testosterone-shattering experience, I have no more dignity to worry about. Ever. Anyone have a cushion I can sit on? A really big fluffy one? Hell, let's even make it pale pink with bows on it just for good measure. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

It took one long, desperate week to prove just how wrong was my prophecy.
"The revolution is not over," Branaric said seriously some ten days later.
But even this--after a long, horrible day of real fighting, a desperate run back into the familiar hills of Tlanth, and the advent of rain beating on the tent over our heads--failed to keep Branaric serious for long. His mouth curved wryly as he added, "And today's action was not a rout, it was a retreat."
"So we will say outside this tent." Khesot paused to tap his pipeweed more deeply into the worn bowl of his pipe, then he looked up, his white eyebrows quirked. "But it was a rout."
I said indignantly, "Our people fought well!"
Khesot gave a stately, measured nod in my direction, without moving from his cushion. "Valiantly, Lady Meliara, valiantly. But courage is not enough when we are so grossly outnumbered. More so now that they have an equally able commander. — Sherwood Smith

What are you doing?" I asked Loretta.
"Stabbing a cushion," she told me. — Joel N. Ross

And what's more, he'll go and live with his friend unless his friend is allowed to come in and live with him ... His friend must have a silk cushion just like his and sleep in your room too. Otherwise he will go and sleep in the coal-cellar with his friend — P.L. Travers

It was painful to contemplate the distance between the future of accomplishment I'd imagined for myself twenty years earlier ... it was painful to understand that the cushion of exceptionality invoked by the drug had made me oblivious to my inertia. And it was painful to have to define myself again, at an age when most people are happy in their own skins. — Ann Marlowe

I've come to view screenwriting assignments as playwriting grants, because they provide a considerable financial cushion. However, they can also be extremely time-consuming. Film projects tend to drag on and on, which takes me away from the theatre, and then they don't get made. At the same time, the screenplays that have come my way have been quite challenging, for the most part, and even enjoyable. — Donald Margulies

You would have to say his number one accomplishment has been to inspire a sense of confidence in the country. That confidence, that optimism, not only gives President Obama a political cushion, but it could have a real world economic impact. — George Stephanopoulos

Life is a whoopee cushion, a chair pulled away just as you were taking a seat. — Wally Lamb

To these Teachers of Zen; you want a zafu cushion? sit your zen ass on a bicycle
seat and peddle into hurricane wind for 8 hours at your max effort; there is your ENGAGED ZEN! — Steve Ilg

My writing tends to become very dense, so I have to keep some cushion. Sometimes, words that seem superfluous are actually essential for the overall effect. — Gretchen Rubin

Golosh Street is an interesting locality. All the oddities of trade seemed to have found their way thither and made an eccentric mercantile settlement. There is a bird-shop at one corner. Immediately opposite is an establishment where they sell nothing but ornaments made out of the tinted leaves of autumn, varnished and gummed into various forms. Further down is a second-hand book-stall. There is a small chink between two ordinary-sized houses, in which a little Frenchman makes and sells artificial eyes, specimens of which, ranged on a black velvet cushion, stare at you unwinkingly through the window as you pass, until you shudder and hurry on, thinking how awful the world would be if everyone went about without eyelids. Madame Filomel, the fortune-teller, lives at No. 12 Golosh Street, second storey front, pull the bell on the left-hand side. Next door to Madame is the shop of Herr Hippe, commonly called the Wondersmith.
("The Wondersmith") — Fitz-James O'Brien

Eliminating or substantially lowering just one major monthly expense can give you enough cushion to move into a more comfortable place financially. — Jean Chatzky