Dance Hall Quotes & Sayings

The Give and Take Athletic Association lived up to its name. The hall of the association in Orchard street was fitted out with muscle- making inventions. With the fibres thus builded up the members were wont to engage the police and rival social and athletic organisations in joyous combat. Between these more serious occupations the Saturday night hop with the paper-box factory girls came as a refining influence and as an efficient screen. — O. Henry

Whilst ladies persist in maintaining the strictly defensive condition, men must naturally, as it were, take the oppposite line, that of attack; otherwise, if both parties held aloof, there would be no more marriages; and the two hosts would die in their respective inaction, without ever coming to a battle. Thus it is evident that as the ladies will not, the men must take the offensive ... Is it not time that the ladies should take an innings? Let us widowers and bachelors form an association to declare that for the next hundred years we will make love no longer. Let the young women come and make love to us; let them write us verses; let them ask us to dance, get us ices and cups of tea, and help us on with our cloaks at the hall-door; and if they are eligible, we may perhaps be induced to yield and say, 'La, Miss Hopkins - I really never - I am so agitated - Ask papa! — William Makepeace Thackeray

In a way, 'Billy Elliot' was autobiographical. I can't dance, but I think his dancing was me discovering about writing and literature. — Lee Hall

Abby did a little happy dance before jogging down the hall to the bedroom. The corners of my mouth turned up. What other woman would be that excited to see her boyfriend trade punches? No wonder I fell in love with her. — Jamie McGuire

But the available light in Twisted River was dim and growing dimmer. The dance-hall door blew (or was slammed) closed, cutting off Teresa Brewer as suddenly as if Six-Pack had taken the singer's slender throat in her hands. When the dance-hall door blew (or was kicked) open again, Tony Bennett was crooning "Rags to Riches." Dominic didn't for a moment doubt that the town's eternal violence was partly spawned by irredeemable music. — John Irving

'Rent-a-tile' means when you go to a dance hall, some people take the middle of the dance floor and do their thing. — Sean Paul

It had been instant, just as she'd known real love would be. She and Shirley had stepped off the bus five Saturdays ago to find Billy and his friends smoking cigarettes on the dance-hall steps. Their eyes had met, and Laurel had thanked God she'd decided a weekend's pay was fair exchange for a new pair of nylons. — Kate Morton

I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television. — Quincy Jones

The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save-the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour-your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life-the greater is the store of your estranged being. — Karl Marx

In the empty lobby outside the Dance Hall she paused to scent the air from the landing board. The orchard was sweet and cool in the rising dawn, and the rain had almost stopped. The comb began to thrum as the hive awoke and the multitude of sisters began moving. Once desperate to be out on the wing, Flora no longer wanted to forage, only to be still and breather sweet wax.

The egg in her belly glowed bright inside her like a tiny sun. — Laline Paull

Oh...I cant. I cant dance."
"What, not at all? Not even when you hear ABBA?"
"I do my very best not to hear ABBA. — Alexis Hall

And we began to sing and play,
To lightly dance in rings and faster turn.
No man within that hall could keep his seat
But needs must dance and leap
Against his will.

This was the way we danced them to the door
And sent them on their way into the world
Where they will leap amain
Till they think one kind thought.

from "The Dancing of the Lord of Weir — Robin Williamson

It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. — Kevin Myers

returned to sow the valley. In the communal dining hall, they sing joyfully. They dance through the night, into the light of dawn. — Ari Shavit

It never was about the musician or the instrument - it was about the laser notes in a hall of mirrors, the music itself. It was going to change the world for the better and it has. Maybe not as fast or as much as we wanted, but it has and it still will. Whether your name is Mozart, or Django Reinhardt, or Robert Johnson, or Jimi Hendrix, or whoever is next; who you are doesn't matter so long as you can open that conduit and let the music come through. It is the burning edge, whatever it sounds like and whoever is playing it. It is the noisy, messy, silly, invincible voice of life that comes through the LP on the turn-table, the transistor radio, or the Bose in your new Lexus that makes you want to get up out of whatever you are stuck in and dance. It is Dionysus and the Maenads all over again. No one can control it and I pity whoever tries. I am old now and only a house cat sunning herself in the window - but I was a tigress once, and I remember. I still remember. — G.J. Paterson

I can't move. My mind's like a dance hall fire, a crowd of terrified voices all screaming instructions at once. — Alan Moore

Alan stopped her in the hall by slipping his arms around her waist. "I haven't done this in one hour and twenty-three mintutes." His mouth covered hers, slowly, confidently. As her lips parted and offered he took, taking the kiss just to the border, but no further, of madness. "I love you." He caught her bottom lip between his teeth, then released her mouth only to change the angle and deepen the kiss. He felt her heartbeat sprint against his, felt that long, lazy meltng of her bones he knew happened just before she went from pliant to avid. "Tonight, no matter who you dance with,think of me."
Breathless,she looked up.In his eyes, she saw that banked brooding passion she could never resist. He'd overwhelm her if she let him;absorb her. He had the power.Shelby tilted her head so her lips stayed within a whisper of his. "Tonight," she said huskily, "no matter who you dance with,you'll want me." Her arms stayed around him when she rested her head on his shoulder. "And I'll know. — Nora Roberts

If you can find a passion at a young age, somewhere between fifteen and thirty, if you can find that passion, I can pretty much guarantee you that you can be sixty-five and still love that passion and still have a reason to dance out of bed and down the hall every morning. — Stevie Nicks

The Death House back then was a self-contained unit, with its own hospital, kitchen, exercise yard and visiting room. The cells were inadequate, dark, and did not have proper sanitary facilities or ventilation. One window and skylight furnished the ventilation and light of the entire unit. Twelve cells were on the lower tier, six on each side, facing each other, with a narrow corridor between them. Five cells were located in an upper tier. There was an area the prisoners called the Dance Hall that housed a prisoner to be executed on his last day. The narrow corridor connected the Dance Hall to the execution room, where the Electric Chair resided. The prisoners named this corridor the Last Mile or the Green Mile, because this was the last walk a prisoner would take all the way to the small green riveted door at the end of the corridor, on his way to the execution room. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

Bhutan all but bases its identity upon its loneliness, and its refusal to b assimilated into India, or Tibet, or Nepal. Vietnam, at present, is a pretty girl with her face pressed up against the window of the dance hall, waiting to be invited in; Iceland is the mystic poet in the corner, with her mind on other things. Argentina longs to be part of the world it left and, in its absence, re-creates the place it feels should be its home; Paraguay simply slams the door and puts up a Do Not Disturb sign. Loneliness and solitude, remoteness and seclusion, are many worlds apart. — Pico Iyer

My sister taught me the best trick. When the salesclerk isn't looking, you make Sharpie marks on the front of all the others so no one else will buy them. I mean, how embarrassing would it be to have someone else show up at the dance wearing the same dress! This way, I know I'll be the only one."
"God,I wouldn't have the guts.What if you got caught!"
The Sharpie-wielding Phillite shrugged. "I would put them all on my dad's card. But then I wouldn't be able to buy the Manolos ... "
She and her impressed friends headed down the hall.Frankie banged his locker closed with unnecessary force. "Mind-boggling," he muttered. "All that money, and they can't buy a clue. — Melissa Jensen

We attach to most of our chapels a cultural hall so that our youth may have a place to dance, to perform their talents in musicals and other uplifting entertainment, and we hope our youth leaders as trustees of the building will see to it that only wholesome, uplifting activities are performed in this building. Should you have any reservations whether or not an activity, a style of dancing or tempo of music is in accord with Church standards, may I suggest this guide: Does it uplift and inspire one to higher ideals? Does it develop wholesome relationships between young men and women, or appeal to and arouse their baser instincts? Will it cause one to be a better Latter-day Saint and lead one closer to the Savior? Avoid all activities and dances which bring the world's demoralizing standards into this sacred meeting place. — Ezra Taft Benson

Passing beneath the dance hall, thinking again of this book, I realized suddenly that our life had come to an end: I realized that the book I was planning was nothing more than a tomb in which to bury her - and the me which had belonged to her. That was some time ago, and ever since I have been trying to write it. Why is it so difficult? Why? Because the idea of an "end" is intolerable to me. — Henry Miller

To Renard's suspicious eye, Elizabeth's nebulous role at court had taken on a new and sinister signifiance. This unspoken Protestant heir presumptive was suddenly the greatest obstacle to Prince Philip's path to England and Renard had already resolved to dispose of her at his earliest conveneicne. Accordingly, he invited her to dance and tried his hand at a little subtle flattery. They manoevered delicately down the Hall, like two scorpions locked in mortal combat, but no matter how he tried, he could not get close enough to sting. — Susan Kay

When you're in Jamaica, unless you're in a tourist spot, you don't hear Bob Marley; you mostly hear dance hall music. — Michael Franti

Again the dance hall, the money rhythm, the love that comes over the radio, the impersonal, wingless touch of the crowd. A despair that reaches down to the very soles of the boots, an ennui, a desperation. In the midst of the highest mechanical perfection to dance without joy, to be so desperately alone, to be almost inhuman because you are human. If there were life on the moon what more nearly perfect, joyless evidence of it could there be than this. If to travel away from the sun is to reach the chill idiocy of the moon, then we have arrived at our goal and life is but the cold, lunar incandescence of the sun. This is the dance of ice-cold life in the hollow of an atom, and the more we dance the colder it gets. — Henry Miller

I just want to get on a table, dance on someone's tater tots, and wait for the hall monitor to drag me away — Katherine Applegate

It had been an evening in the empty dance hall when not even that depth of stone and the constant stirring of the ceiling fans could cool the stifling and humid night air, which had entered the Duckworth Club as heavily as a fog from the Arabian Sea. Even atheists, like Lowji, were praying for the monsoon rains. After — John Irving

How do we seize the past? Can we ever do so? When I was a medical student some pranksters at the end-of-the-term dance released into the hall a piglet which had been smeared with grease. It squirmed between legs, evaded capture, squealed a lot. People fell over trying to grasp it, and were made to look ridiculous in the process. The past often seems to behave like that piglet. — Julian Barnes

Impulsive enjoyment of life, which leads away both from work in a calling and from religion, was as such the enemy of rational asceticism, whether in the form of seigneurial sports, or the enjoyment of the dance-hall or the public - house of the common man. — Max Weber

She studied me with concern. She touched the new streak of gray in my hair that matched hers exactly - our painful souvenir from holding Atlas's burden. There was a lot I'd wanted to say to Annabeth, but Athena had taken the confidence out of me. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.
I do not approve of your friendship with my daughter.
"So," Annabeth said. "What did you want to tell me earlier?"
The music was playing. People were dancing in the streets. I said, "I, uh, was thinking we got interrupted at Westover Hall. And ... I think I owe you a dance."
She smiled slowly. "All right, Seaweed Brain."
So I took her hand, and I don't know what everybody else heard, but to me it sounded like a slow dance: a little sad, but maybe a little hopeful, too. — Rick Riordan

Everyone is beautiful and talented in their own special way. Some people can sing, dance, play instruments, teach, and more. You may not be in the hall of fame, but you possess the ability to inspire others. Recognize your talents and continue to be creative. Share your beautiful gifts with the world — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

There are issues worth advancing in images worth admiring; and the truth is never "plain," nor appearances ever "sincere." To try to make them so is to neutralize the primary, gorgeous eccentricity of imagery in Western culture since the Reformation: the fact that it cannot be trusted, that imagery is always presumed to be proposing something contestable and controversial. This is the sheer, ebullient, slithering, dangerous fun of it. No image is presumed inviolable in our dance hall of visual politics, and all images are potentially powerful. — Dave Hickey

Rush like a river from the highest mountain, drink from the fountain and stop your counting. What kind of wine does he have in his tavern, oh so enchanted and sing like a mad man. Mad with the love of a wife for her husband, child or mother, sister or brother ... sing for the Most High, sing for no other. We are all notes in this eternal song, God plays his flute and we all dance along. — Trevor Hall

I remember when I first rocked in it was a great big dance hall and Tommy Young was blowing trombone and Louis [Armstrong] was singing a tune and it was just Satchmo and you could hear it resounding through the dance hall and people were dancing. It was a highlight. — Gordon Lightfoot

She never came back after mid-term break; according to the Automator, 'unforeseen circumstances' had forced her to extend her holiday. Every day Howard sees her classes trooping despondently from the Geography Room to the study hall, or carrying votive bundles of cardboard and paper to the recycling bins, their faces anxious, hopeful, like Indians doing a rain dance. He knows how they feel. Since mid-term he's existed in a constant state of tension, braced against every moment as the one that might finally restore her. Even out of school, even on his own, shopping in the supermarket, sitting at the traffic lights, he finds himself holding his breath. But the days are a series of ghost pregnancies, delivering nothing. — Paul Murray

Viewing movies in very slow motion, looking for synchrony, one realizes that what we know as dance is really a slowed-down, stylized version of what human beings do whenever they interact. — Edward T. Hall

I was always an introvert as a kid. Then, when I first kind of came out as a human being, I used to be one of those guys who'd go nuts on the dance floor, and people would gather around. — Daryl Hall

I played a little bit of everything. I got Ace of Bass, hip-hop songs, and dance hall [music]. — Theophilus London

Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same. — Anandamayi Ma

I don't dance like I used to, but I'm moving and I'll be doing my form of dance at Town Hall ... I hit my limitations but I learn to work with what I've got. — Ben Vereen