David Held Quotes & Sayings

As the sun went down, I saw a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews seemed to strain and purify the air, and I was soothed with an infinite stillness. I got the world, as it were, by the nape of the neck, and held it under in the tide of its own events, till it was drowned, and then I let it go down stream like a dead dog. Vast hollow chambers of silence stretched away on every side, and my being expanded in proportion, and filled them. Then first could I appreciate sound, and find it musical. — Henry David Thoreau

A few weeks ago, if you had told me that being held in David Stark's arms was one of the nicest things I'd ever feel, I wouldn't have laughed at you. I would've been too busy choking on my own horror. — Rachel Hawkins

This, of course, is because today's postfeminist era is also today's postmodern era, in which supposedly everybody now knows everything about what's really going on underneath all the semiotic codes and cultural conventions, and everybody supposedly knows what paradigms everybody is operating out of, and so we're all as individuals held to be far more responsible for our sexuality, since everything we do is now unprecedentedly conscious and informed. — David Foster Wallace

It's a truth universally accepted that a single woman without romantic or professional prospects must be in want of a husband." Stella sneered, paraphrasing an ironic Jane Austen quote.
"Come one, Stells." David tried to console her. They sat across from each other in Riley's kitchen, each with a cup of coffee that was quickly going from lukewarm to cold. "You don't honestly believe you don't have prospects."
She just shrugged. "I guess part of me thought it was always going to be me with you. But as I see, fairy tale's over."
David reached a hand between them and held tight to hers. "I'm sorry."
She pulled her hand away, praying she could keep boundaries. "You did everything right. I'm a moronic tool."
"No, you're not. You're an amazing person-"
"Blah blah blah." Stella interrupted. "You don't have to try to sell me on myself. I might be broken, but I know what I am. — Rebekah Martin

Publicly, we're saying we're better at fighting terrorism. Privately, we know that the bureaucracy has only gotten worse, since the high-level people are scared of being held responsible for 9/11. — David Hunt

Keeping out the mirror, water, and the towel, he put the other things away in the box and replaced it on the shelf. Another box held articles of a more technical nature. He pulled them all out and set them up neatly on the desk like a surgeon lining up his instruments before commencing an operation. He covered his shoulders and front with the towel and then sketched out what he wanted to do on a piece of paper. He applied spirit gum to his nose and tapped it with his finger to make it sticky. He then quickly added a bit of a cotton ball to the surface before the adhesive dried out. He used a Popsicle stick to remove from a jar a small quantity of nose putty mixed with Derma Wax. He rubbed the putty into a ball, warming it with his body heat, making it easier to manipulate. He — David Baldacci

I have long held that there are two fundamental views of children: That they are pets who can talk, or that they are small people who do not yet know very much. The wrong one is winning. — David Friedman

I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any independent, intellegent, and respectable man what decision they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there not many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as his only AVAILABLE one, thus proving that he is himself AVAILABLE for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought. — Henry David Thoreau

Stress and sleep deprivation had a funny way of liberating the mind from previously held truisms, replacing them with a more compliant desperation. — David Z. Hirsch

She breathes as if he had held her hand and helped her jump over the chasm of that scar. — David Grossman

I remember like it was yesterday. I remember because it was the last time we held hands — David Arnold

Dreamt I stood in a china shop so crowded from floor to far-off ceiling with shelves of porcelain antiques, etc. that moving a muscle would cause several to fall and smash to bits. Exactly what happened but instead of a crashing noise, an august chord rang out, half cello, half celeste, D major (?), held for four beats. My wrist knocked a Ming vase affair off its pedestal-E flat. Whole string section, glorious, transcendant, angels wept. Deliberately now, smashed a figurine of an ox for the next note, then a milkmaid, then Saturday's Child-orgy of shrapnel filled the air, divine harmonies my head. — David Mitchell

I ... asked why purebloods despised me so. He replied, 'What if the difference between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands? ... fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror — David Mitchell

A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,
the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man's treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so. — Henry David Thoreau

Brothers are not like sisters [ ... ] They don't call each other every week. They don't have secret worlds to share. Can you think of two brothers who are really, inseparably close? No, for brothers it's a different set of rules. Like it or not, we're held to the bare minimum. Will you be there for him if he needs you? Of course. Should you love him without question? Absolutely. But those are the easy things. Do you make him a large part of your life, an equal to a wife or a best friend? At the beginning, when you're kids, the answer is often yes. But when you get to high school, or older? Do you tell him everything? Do you let him know who you really are? The answer is usually no. Because all these other things get in the way. Girlfriends. Rebellion. Work. — David Levithan

It has been a good while since 12:00 a.m. held much attraction for me beyond being a perfectly lovely time to be ensconced in the comfort of my own home, sitting in my underpants, contentedly worrying about something. — David Rakoff

Despite his deeply-held ideology, Reagan was willing to talk to Gorbachev. He willing to do business with him. We should realize that engaging with adversaries is often one of our great strengths. As long as we use the engagement to stand up for the things we care about, there is no harm in talking. — David Hoffman

Mourning the dead led the living, as it often does, to come to terms with their own existence. Following Joyce, Benjamin sensed that this quintessentially modern trauma (the steam engine, that machine of progress, can also be a machine of mass destruction) presaged what the new century held in store. — David Kishik

Sometimes you'll have great actors who aren't comfortable with improvising. Which can get pretty frustrating. But every actor's coming from a different place and they have their own strengths and weaknesses and your job is to sell them as two people in the same world. Some of them have to have their hands held and some I just let loose entirely. — David Gordon Green

David Levithan lives in the best of times and the worst of times, the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness, the epoch of belief and the epoch of incredulity, the season of Light, and the season of Darkness. He has endeavored in this Ghostly little book to raise the Ghost of an Idea which shall not put his readers out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with him. Whether he shall turn out to the be hero of his own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, time must show. — David Levithan

It was rumored she held grudges till they died of old age, then had them stuffed and mounted. — David Weber

Here, I say, I have amused myself in reading and thinking of my absent friend, sometimes with a mixture of pain, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes anticipating a joyful and happy meeting, whilst my heart would bound and palpitate with the pleasing idea, and with the purest affection I have held you to my bosom 'til my whole soul has dissolved in tenderness and my pen fallen from my hand. How often do I reflect with pleasure that I hold in possession a heart equally warm with my own, and fully as susceptible of the tenderest impressions, and who even now whilst he is reading here, feels all I describe. — David McCullough

The Doctor was strapped to a wide table of some kind, and Turlough immediately started on the straps that held him.
"We must stop meeting like this."
"Very amusing," the Doctor replied with an irritated look. Sharma made quicker work of them with his issue knife.
"You're forgetting your manners." Turlough remembered their predicament.
"Thank me later," he suggested, and turned to leave. — David A. McIntee

So finally, as a pair of twentysomething men passed by holding hands, Austin said, "Hey, that could be us in ten years."
And Hugo said, "Or ten months."
And Austin said, "Or ten days."
And Hugo said, "Or ten minutes."
And Austin said, "Or ten seconds."
Then they each counted to ten, and held hands for the rest of the day. — David Levithan

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
— David Icke

And it's a preference, a long-held preference, what you might call a 'habit of mind' - putting words into other people's mouths. And those people are played by people whose profession is to pretend to be other people. For which purpose, they adopt gestures, voices, intonations, even sexual attitudes not their own. On stage, they affect to be ravished and amused by someone whom they will, afterwards, run a mile to avoid having dinner with. Likewise, they spit torrents of abuse against an actor who later, later, in the softness of the night, they will share their bed with. — David Hare

While I'm critical to the Bush presidency, it's been enormously beneficial for Salon because we're seen as kind of an aggressive watchdog on the Bush White House. Particularly since Florida, our readership hit a whole new level, and we held onto those readers. — David Talbot

Christianity has held back any further advances in human consciousness for the past thousand years. And for the past century it's been in direct conflict with its illegitimate offspring, Communism (again with a capital C). Both ask the individual to sacrifice his self-interest to the higher goals of the organization. (Which is okay by me as long as it's voluntary; but as soon as either becomes too big-and takes on that damned capital C-they stop asking for cooperation and start demanding it.) Any higher states of human enlightenment have been sacrificed between these two monoliths. — David Gerrold

Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls. And then the sun goes down, and long the afterglow gives light. — Henry David Thoreau

Our personal consumer choices have ecological, social, and spiritual consequences. It is time to re-examine some of our deeply held notions that underlie our lifestyles. — David Suzuki

Peace and love no longer held dominion in San Francisco, Gaskin decided. "The information we got in San Francisco was that folks were buying into violence in a wholesale lot," he said in explaining his flock's mass departure. His apocalyptic vision extended to American cities in general. They were falling into brutishness and depravity. And the only solution, according to Gaskin, was to withdraw from their destructive vortex and lead a simple, communal life in the country. — David Talbot

An aristocracy come to power, convinced of its own disinterested quality, believing itself above both petty partisan interest and material greed. The suggestion that this also meant the holding and wielding of power was judged offensive by these same people, who preferred to view their role as service, though in fact this was typical of an era when many of the great rich families withdrew from the new restless grab for money of a modernizing America, and having already made their particular fortunes, turned to the public arena as a means of exercising power. They were viewed as reformers, though the reforms would be aimed more at the newer seekers of wealth than at those who already held it. ("First-generation millionaires," Garry Wills wrote in Nixon Agonistes, "give us libraries, second-generation millionaires give us themselves.") — David Halberstam

We tried burying the waste at sea and the concrete cannisters that held it cracked open. — David R. Brower

We're not only held captive by our sin, but also by the delusion of our righteousness. Resting in God's grace isn't just about confessing your sin; it's about forsaking your righteousness as well. — Paul David Tripp

She had learned, in her life, that time lived inside you. You are time, you breathe time. When she'd been young, she'd had an insatiable hunger for more of it, though she hadn't understood why. Now she held inside her a cacophony of times and lately it drowned out the world. The apple tree was still nice to lie near. They peony, for its scent, also fine. When she walked through the woods (infrequently now) she picked her way along the path, making way for the boy inside to run along before her. It could be hard to choose the time outside over the time within. — David Wroblewski

As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any. We can tolerate all philosophies ... It is the attitude of these men, more than any communication which they make, that attracts us. — Henry David Thoreau

Perhaps this was what Queens did. Perhaps they held their Kings in the darkness, deep within their castles and allowed them that moment of weakness they could never show to anyone else. Perhaps they gave strength to their Kings, because everyone else only took it from them. — David Gaider

[David Riesman] had made a hobby of studying the American Civil War and he had always been disturbed by the passions which it had unleashed in the country, the tensions and angers just below the surface, the thin fabric of the society which held it all together, so easy to rend. — David Halberstam

I shoved the monster into the water, held it under, screamed "Die!" or something to that effect. After a few seconds it stopped moving and black sauce oozed out of it like an oil slick. Dr. Marconi got close enough so I could finally hear him. He said, "They're trying to get into the water! Don't let them! — David Wong

Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' conscience; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding the mirror."
I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.
Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to. — David Mitchell

Boomer took bites of all six varieties, contemplating each one and "guring out the order in which he would then eat them. "I like the
brown one and the lighter brown one and the almost-brown one. I'm not so sure about the minty one. But really, I think the lebkuchen spice
one is the best."
"The what?"
"The lebkuchen spice one." He held it up for me. "This one."
"You're making that up. What's a lebkuchen spice? It sounds like a cross between a Keebler elf and a stripper. Hello, my name ees
Lebkuchen Spice, and I vant to show you my cooooookies ... "
"Don't be rude!" Boomer protested. As if the cookie might be offended. — David Levithan

A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end. — Henry David Thoreau

The piano is a divinely inspired instrument, a mirror held up to its player's soul that captures the light and shadow of the performer and reflects them back to the listener. — David Lanz

Stories always have held conflicts and contrasts, highs and lows, life and death situations. And there can be much suffering in stories, but now we say the artist doesn't have to suffer to show suffering. You just have to understand the human condition, understand the suffering. — David Lynch

And girl-women, women, curved like instruments or fruit, skin burnished brown-bright, suit tops held by delicate knots of fragile colored string against the pull of mysterious weights, suit bottoms riding low over the gentle juts of hips totally unlike your own, immoderate swells and swivels that melt in light into a surrounding space that cups and accommodates the soft curves as things precious. You almost understand. — David Foster Wallace

David held up his hands. "Hold it. This is going nowhere. You two are both afraid, and being afraid makes you angry, and being angry makes you lash out."
"Thank you, Dr. Laura," I said snippily.
"I'm not afraid of her," Hunter said, like a six-year-old, and I wanted to kick him under the table. Now that I knew he was actually alive, I remembered just how unpleasant he was. — Cate Tiernan

We are piercing through the rumbling tumbling crowd and our arms are like the most precarious bridge, held together by that single, pulling clasp. I think, If she lets go, it's all over. If I let go, it's all over. And because she is holding on so tight, I hold on so tight. I am being jostled from all sides - I know there will be bruises tomorrow - but somehow this hand-hold is immune. Somehow we stay together. We are graced, and we are together, and the twoliness is trumping the loneliness and the doubt and the fear. We are making it through. Thank you, music. Damn you, memories. Thank you, present. — David Levithan

The Icon'ry, Aunt Bees said, held Valleysmen's past an' present all t'gether — David Mitchell

One of the things that the court held in Brown v. Board of Education is that government can't impose a badge of inferiority on some of its citizens. Yet that is exactly what Proposition 8 does with respect to gay and lesbian couples in California. — David Boies

The touch was exactly what the touch of a lover's hand should be: familiar, yet exciting as a whispered promise. I felt an almost irresistible urge to take her hand and place it flat against my chest, near my heart. Maybe I should've done it. I know now that she would've laughed, if I'd done it, and she would've liked me for it. But strangers that we were then, we stood for five long seconds and held the stare, while all the parallel worlds, all the parallel lives that might've been, and never would be, whirled around us. — Gregory David Roberts

Amelia's second trip to Bangor was called Woman's Day, an event arranged by the chamber of commerce in cooperation with Boston-Maine Airways. Planes of the air service flew nearly empty out of Bangor, a fact lamented by Godfrey himself. A commonly held perception was that the wives of businessmen perceived flying as dangerous and thus discouraged their husbands from using aircraft for business trips. This belief hindered the growth of air passenger service. Amelia hoped to dispel that notion. — David H. Bergquist

When Rita asked Tabin to change places with her and operate on the next patient, he did his best to impress her, but the first incision with the point of his blade brought a grunt of disapproval.
'Try not to jab at the patient like you're killing a pig,' Rita said. 'Let your hand widen the wound gently.'
Tabin pictured the way fencers held their foils as they sized up opponents, swaying gently side to side, and attempted to send that image to receptors in the fine muscles of his fingers, so that they enlarged the opening one delicate cut at a time.
'Much better, Doctor Geoff,' Rita said. 'If you keep this up, you'll hardly blind anybody. — David Oliver Relin

a while. To let John Puller Sr. see what his real priorities were in life. And then, depending on what he decided, they would go from there. Puller folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope. Words from the grave. Or if not the grave, Puller didn't know where. Despite the obvious love and affection she held for her sons, as noted in the letter, Puller came away from reading it more depressed than he had been before. Part of him had hoped that his mother had left her husband. Because that meant she might still be alive. To Puller, this letter meant that his mother most likely was dead. He would take bullets and bombs and jihadist fanatics trying to rip his life from him over that. You fought for the flag and country you represented. But you really fought for the guy beside you. Here, Puller was alone. It was just him and a vanished mother to whom he had given all of his heart. As he stood there looking down at the envelope, depression — David Baldacci

By what I have read in books, I think few that have held a pen were ever really wearied, or they would write of it more strongly. I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour. I did not think of myself, but just of each fresh step which I was sure would be my last, with despair - and of Alan, who was the cause of it, with hatred. Alan was in the right trade as a soldier; this is the officer's part to make men continue to do things, they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was offered, they would lie down where they were and be killed. And I dare say I would have made a good enough private; for in these last hours it never occurred to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I was able, and die obeying. — Robert Louis Stevenson

An infinite number of things in the universe are held back from you only by your altitude and attitude. — David Allen

I'd never had anyone ask me to let them in. Inside was a place most folks wouldn't have ever wanted to glimpse, much less be a part of, but Maggie had always been banging on the door. Maggie had always been trying her damnedest to take part of the weight off me, and I'd never let her. I couldn't let her then, and I wasn't sure that I could let her now, but the one thing that was for certain was that I'd carried that weight for too long. I'd carried it until I was almost broken, and the only thing that had ever come along and offered to fix any of it, whether she held that power or not, was her. — David Joy

What separates Rand from Marx is that the latter saw the true flourishing of individual creativity as best accomplished through collaboration and association with others in a collective drive to abolish the barriers of scarcity and material necessity beyond which, Marx held, the true realm of individual freedom could begin. — David Harvey

It is rare for people to say they want to be held accountable, but in reality, everyone wants everyone else to be held accountable. — David Cottrell

A homeland is not gotten as a gift; it is not acquired by privilege or political contracts, it is not bought with gold or held by force. No, it is made with the sweat of the brow; it is the historic creation and collective enterprise of the people, the fruit of its people's labor bodily, spiritually, morally over the span of generations. — David Ben Gourion

I once attended an advertising conference held at the Greenbrier Hotel in 1968. The dean of the original Mad Men, the great David Ogilvy, was the keynote speaker. The subject of his speech was the new creative revolution in advertising. — Jerry Della Femina

His arms closed around them. While the storm raged outside,he held them protectively. Anna buried her face in one side of his neck,David in the other. His hands cupped the backs of their heads,pressing them closer.Things were hurled against the cellar door with such impetus that David's small fist gripped a handful of his shirt. And he knew that this was what mattered. They mattered. He mattered to them. All the rest of it all the rest of it evaporated into insignificance.. — Sandra Brown

Those who seek to glorify biblical womanhood have forgotten the dark stories. They have forgotten that the concubine of Bethlehem, the raped princess of David's house, the daughter of Jephthah, and the countless unnamed women who lived and died between the lines of Scripture exploited, neglected, ravaged, and crushed at the hand of patriarchy are as much a part of our shared narrative as Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, and Ruth. — Rachel Held Evans

But even if a person were ignorant of such things, the sight of a moving train held aloft above the great gorge at Niagara by so delicate a contrivance was, in the 1860's, nothing short of miraculous. The bridge seemed to defy the most fundamental laws of nature. Something so slight just naturally ought to give way beneath anything so heavy. That it did not seemed pure magic. — David McCullough

All over him a flaking, and the flakes tiny creatures, clawed and with mouths, all light, that crawled into the cracks that had been opened in him, seeking bone. Only when a shadow of cloud passed over did the many mouths of the light desist.

Tries to hold it, the shadow; to make at least the memory of it last on his flesh, and cool and calm the furious activity all over the surface of him. But his mind lets the cloud slide away like everything else it has held. All that remains in his skull, behind the blind eyes, is sky, and that too burns, shakes out flame. Cloud after cloud rolls over, touches, cools, and is gone. Beyond hold. — David Malouf

They had a much more fundamental problem with the market: greed. Market motives were held to be inherently corrupt. The moment that greed was validated and unlimited profit was considered a perfectly viable end in itself, this political, magical element became a genuine problem, because it meant that even those actors - the brokers, stock-jobbers, traders - who effectively made the system run had no convincing loyalty to anything, even to the system itself. — David Graeber

This is from me. For all the thousands of bad guys in your life." She gave a meaningful look to Ezra. Then she smugly held up a case.

Montgomery popped the catches and opened the top.

Oh, my gosh," she said.

Inside was a single piece of sharpened wood.

MR POINTY!" she screamed in delight.

You gave Buffy's weapon...her stake...to the cheerleader," David said with a whistle. "Sheer genius. — Tracy Lynn

So many things were new. Everything changed. The past would not hold and could not be held. — David Malouf

Some critics of my work took the view that a satirist should defer to the finer feelings of his readers and respect widely held beliefs. — David Low

I haven't been a good guest in Hugo's life. I access his memories and discover that he and Austin first became boyfriends at this very celebration, a year ago this weekend. They'd been friends for a little while, but they'd never talked about how they felt. They were each afraid of ruining the friendship, and instead of making it better, their caution made everything awkward. So finally, as a pair of twentysomething men passed by holding hands, Austin said, "Hey, that could be us in ten years."
And Hugo said, "Or ten months."
And Austin said, "Or ten days."
And Hugo said, "Or ten minutes."
And Austin said, "Or ten seconds."
Then they each counted to ten, and held hands for the rest of the day.
The start of it.
Hugo would have remembered this.
But I didn't. — David Levithan

We name mostly in order to control but what is worth loving does not want to be held within the bounds of too narrow a calling. In many ways love has already named us before we can even begin to speak back to it, before we can utter the right words or understand what has happened to us or is continuing to happen to us: an invitation to the most difficult art of all, to love without naming at all. — David Whyte

On his bedside table, between the reading lamp and the telephone, was his battered copy of David Copperfield. Homer didn't have to open the book to know how the story began. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show," he recited from memory. — John Irving

She undid the buttons of his coat, gently slipped her arms round his waist and pulled him tight against her body, then kissed him on the lips, so gently; she held onto him for what to David seemed like hours. — Michael Braccia

Just when normal life felt almost possible - when the world held some kind of order, meaning, even loveliness (the prismatic spray of light through an icicle; the stillness of a sunrise), some small thing would go awry and the veil of optimism was torn away, the barren world revealed. They learned, somehow, to wait those times out. There was no cure, no answer, no reparation. — David Wroblewski

I've already just completely opened up about my shame and my inability to be open and straightforward about this. You're exposing something I've already held up to view. It's your shame about being ashamed of what you're afraid might be seen as a lack of brightness that's getting to stay buried under this dead horse of my deformity that you're trying to whip. — David Foster Wallace

After Game Six of the Finals, as Paxson's shot went through the net, Michael Jordan raced to the basket to get the ball. He held it up high above his head, and his teammates thought he was going to say something about a prospective trip to Disneyland. Instead, he yelled out, Thunder Dan Majerle-my fucking ass! — David Halberstam

David Duchovny is a dream; a dreamboat and a dream. He was so kind ... He held my hand after we were done shooting and told me I did great. He's so good at what he does. — Jillian Bach

Trite though it (used to) sound, real sexuality is about our struggles to connect with one another, to erect bridges across the chasms that separate selves. Sexuality is, finally, about imagination. Thanks to brave people's recognition of AIDS as a fact of life, we are beginning to realize that highly charged sex can take place in all sorts of ways we'd forgotten or neglected - in a conversational nuance; in a body's posture, a certain pressure in a held hand. Sex can be everywhere we are, all the time. — David Foster Wallace

In 1 Samuel 17, we see how comfort stymied the nation of Israel and David's three older brothers up at their army camp. They repeated their battle cry every day. They got suited up and went and stood on the front lines. They had God on their side and believed he was the one true God. But for forty days they were held back by comfort. They were prevented from moving forward by the lure of ease. The giant was calling the shots. He was dictating their lives. Goliath would come out every morning and evening and shake, rattle, and roar, and the Israelites would all say, "Nope, not today. Too dangerous. Too uncomfortable. Let's go have lunch. Let's stay in the tents where it's safe. If we run out of supplies someone will arrive with more. Maybe we'll do battle tomorrow." We — Louie Giglio

Since you always lived inside your own head, you were much better at seeing the truth about others than you ever were at seeing yourself. So you navigated your life with the help of others who held up mirrors for you. People praised your good qualities and criticized your bad habits, and these perspectives - often surprising to you - helped you to guide your life. So poorly did you know yourself that you were always surprised at how you looked in photographs or how you sounded on voice mail. In this way, much of your existence took place in the eyes, ears, and fingertips of others. And now that you've left the Earth, you are stored in scattered heads around the globe. Here in this Purgatory, all the people with whom you've ever come in contact are gathered. The scattered bits of you are collected, pooled, and unified. The mirrors are held up in front of you. Without the benefit of filtration, you see yourself clearly for the first time. And that is what finally kills you. — David Eagleman

I have always unswervingly held, that God, in our civilizing world, manifests Himself not in the miracles of biblical age, but in progress. It is progress that leads humanity up the ladder towards the God-head. No Jacob's ladder this, no, but rather Civilization's Ladder, if you will. — David Mitchell

You were lonely.
Before you met me.
When you met me.
You were alone.
You were a lonely child.
Your parents left you to yourself.
You never said it but
when I held you in my arms I could feel it.
I see now.
I thought you were strong.
You're not.
Neither am I. — David Harrower

Sylvie's sort of pregnant. Well not sort of. She is. Pregnant. Actually pregnant with a baby.'
'Oh Dexter! Do you know the father? I'm kidding! Congratulations, Dex. God, aren't you meant to space your bombshells out a bit. Not just drop them all at once?'
She held his face in both hands, looked at it.
'You're getting married?-'
'Yes'
-'And you're going to be a father?'
'I know! Fuck me a father!'
'Is that allowed? I mean will they let you?'
'Apparently'
'I think it's wonderful. Fucking hell, Dexter, I turn my back for one minute ... !'
She hugged him once again her arms high round his neck. She felt drunk, full of affection and a certain sadness too, as if something was coming to an end. She wanted to say something along these lines, but thought it best to do this through a joke.
'Of course you've destroyed any chance I had of future happiness, but I'm delighted for you, really. — David Nicholls

It reminds him of a tale the elder monks told him once, when he was a youngster: the Last Ride of the Tiger Tickler. There was, according to fiction, a man who came upon an untended tiger cub. He took it home and raised it, and, when it was fully grown, he took to riding into town on its back. He steered the beast with a silk handkerchief: he'd lean forward and flick the tiger's left or right ear to make it turn, or brush its nose to make it start or stop. Of course, the tiger, brought up on milk and honey lapped from a bowl held in the kind man's hands, didn't know any better, so he went along with it. Disregarding the tiresome details of the tale, when the Tiger Tickler mistakenly rides into town on a different tiger, who despite similar build and markings has a radically different opinion as to the rightful place of mankind (namely in, not on), everybody gets eaten up. — David Whiteland

The shells had landed on the cobblestone road.
"Sonsofbitches," Wiseman muttered.
We looked up and grinned at each other.
"Here they come again!"
Sitting in an inch of water. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, held my breath, and clutched my elbows with my arms around my knees.
Three more shells came in, low and angry, and burst in the orchard.
"They're walking 'em towards us," I whispered.
I felt as if a giant with exploding iron fingers were looking for me, tearing up the ground as he came. I wanted to strike at him, to kill him, to stop him before he ripped into me, but I could do nothing. Sit and take it, sit and take it. The giant raked the orchard and tore up the roads and stumbled toward us in a terrible blind wrath as we sat in our hole with our heads between our legs and curses on our lips. — David Kenyon Webster

Three days after that, the funeral was held, and while riding from the church to the cemetery Ava looked out the widow and noticed that everyone she passed was crying.
"Old people, college students, even the colored men at the gas station
the soul brothers, or whatever we're supposed to call them now."
It was such an outdated term, I just had to use it myself.
"How did the soul brothers know your father?"
"That's just it," she said. "No one told us until after the burial that Kennedy had been shot. It happened when we were in the church, so that's what everyone was so upset about. The president, not my father. — David Sedaris

crossed her arms and stared back at him. "I really don't have to tell you anything." "No, you really don't." He pointed to the cops and detectives. "But those guys you do. And I'd have a better story prepared than the bullshit you just tried to feed me." Myers rose. "I need to attend to some things." "I'm sure. Calling a really good lawyer should be first on the list." She hurried from the room and disappeared down the hall to her office. On a hunch Puller went over to the bar where one of the waiters was sitting looking exhausted. He held up his set of keys and said, "Ms. Myers asked me to get something from her car, but she was so distraught she forgot to tell me what make and model." The man said, "Oh, it's the blue BMW 750. License plate says 'Grunt.' She parks it in the back lot." "Thanks. — David Baldacci

stood a bit over five feet, and all who knew her knew what a force she was. In a household of three men and one woman, she more than held her own. She was the most vivacious of the family, a tireless, all-season — David McCullough

The place smelled of sweat and burned coffee and the passage of time, which held its own moldy stink. — David Baldacci

When I first got to the majors in 2004, female fans held up signs asking me to marry them. Those girls today were what, 13, 14? I'm 23, but that's a little young even for me. — David Wright

She sorted through the mail and held one elegant, hot-pressed envelope out to Jane. "Here is one for David. Would you prefer me to leave it here, or have it sent over to him? — Mary Robinette Kowal

The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out; and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only to clear theatmosphere of smoke. — Henry David Thoreau

In his mind, he held up all the artifacts he had collected over the years and wondered about their true value. — Paul David Tripp

I often wondered after David's death: Had they known something then? Did their very souls recognize each other? Did Jacob, closer to God than anyone else I knew, somehow sense this was the last time he would see his grandpa? Had
there been a message to the little boy in David's long-held gaze? Did these two people - the six-year-old boy and the sixty-year-old man - realize something the rest of us didn't? — Mary Potter Kenyon

It felt good to be surrounded by books, by all this solid knowledge, by these objects that could be ripped page by page but couldn't be torn if the pages all held together. — David Levithan

He remembered suddenly, at this moment, as he looked at the squares of moonlight lying on the floor, the time when he had first realized that pain is a thing that we must face and come to terms with if life is to be lived with dignity an not merely muddled through like an evil dream ... In some vague way he had understood that dark things are necessary; without them the silver moonlight would just stream away into nothingness, but with them it can be held and arranged into beautiful squares. (David Eliot, Chapter 4) — Elizabeth Goudge

Room peering out, a gun in one hand, his other hand curled around the window drape. "Dad?" said Tyler in a shaky voice. Wingo held up a hand to quiet his son. He lingered at the window for a few more minutes, his gaze running up and down the streets, to the tops of the buildings and — David Baldacci

It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor. — Henry David Thoreau

Even this abbreviated rundown of mind-brain philosophies would not be complete without what the Australian philosopher David Chalmers calls "don't-have-clue materialism." This is the default position of those who have no idea about the origins of consciousness or the mind but assert that "it must be physical, as materialism must be true," as Chalmers puts it. "Such a view is held widely, but rarely in print." One might add that many working scientists hold this view without really reflecting on the implications of it. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Victor smiled politely in return, the way someone smiles when they're thanked for having done a minor favor in times past. Held open a door in the rain, lent someone a small amount of money, butchered an ex-lover, that sort of thing. — David Weber

But this is the real thing, the hug that let's you feel held. — David Levithan