Fence Sitting Quotes & Sayings

They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own and fence their neighbors away; they deface her with their buildings and their refuse. That nation is like a spring freshet that overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. We cannot dwell side by side. — Sitting Bull

In an age of casual, cynical, indifferent routine, among people who held themselves as if they were not flesh, but meat-Dagny's bearing seemed almost indecent, because this was the way a woman would have faced a ballroom centuries ago, when the act of displaying one's half-naked body for the admiration of men was an act of daring, when it had meaning, and but one meaning, acknowledged by all as a high adventure. And this-thought Mrs. Taggart, smiling-was the girl she had believed to be devoid of sexual capacity. She felt an immense relief, and a touch of amusement at the thought that a discovery of this kind should make her feel relieved. The relief lasted only for a few hours. At the end of the evening, she saw Dagny in a corner of the ballroom, sitting on a balustrade as if it were a fence rail, her legs dangling under the chiffon skirt as if she were dressed in slacks. She was talking to a couple of helpless young men, her face contemptuously empty. — Ayn Rand

Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence. — Lemuel K. Washburn

One day he [Wagner] was batting against a young pitcher who had just come into the league. The catcher was a kid, too . The pitcher threw Honus a curve ball, and he swung at it and missed and fell down. Looked helpless as a robin. I was kind of surprised, but the guy sitting next to me poked me in the ribs and said, 'Watch this next one.' Those kids figured they had the old man's weakness, you see, and served him up the same dish - as he knew they would. Well, Honus hit a line drive so hard the fence in left field went back and forth for five minutes. — Burleigh Grimes

I have been described by one of my colleagues as a 'militant agnostic' with my tagline, 'I don't know, and neither do you!' I take this hard-line, fence-sitting position because it is the only position consistent with both my scientific ethos and my conscience. — Brian Schmidt

I may have had a prejudice against agnosticism as a body of thought: sort of a fence-sitting theory, where you can't make up your mind one way or another. — S.T. Joshi

I'll tell you what kind of red hair he had. I started playing golf when I was only ten years old. I remember once, the summer I was around twelve, teeing off and all, and having a hunch that if I turned around all of a sudden, I'd see Allie. So I did, and sure enough, he was sitting on his bike outside the fence
there was this fence that went all around the course
and he was sitting there, about a hundred and fifty yards behind me, watching me tee off. That's the kind of red hair he had. — J.D. Salinger

The boy was smaller than Bruno and was sitting on the ground with a forlorn expression. He wore the same striped pajamas that all the other people on that side of the fence wore, and a striped cloth cap on his head. He wasn't wearing any shoes or socks and his feet were rather dirty. On his arm he wore an armband with a star on it. — John Boyne

The more you know, the harder you will find it to make up your mind, it doesn't really matter if you find it. You can't see which grass is greener, chances are it's neither and either way it's easier to see the difference when you're sitting on the fence. — Tim Minchin

Last week, when I went early into my garden, a rose-breasted grosbeak was sitting on the fence. Oh, he was beautiful as a flower. I hardly dared to breathe, I did not stir, and we gazed at each other fully five minutes before he concluded to move. — Celia Thaxter

It means eating your words, this thing of refusing to be a fence-sitter, but I'd rather eat my words than get calluses from sitting.
No one who has not experienced the condescension of a buyer toward an ordinary salesgirl can have any conception of its withering effect. — Mary Barnett Gilson

I found a treehouse. I found this weird tree, out in a field, and someone had put a piece of a fence, way up in a tree. I just went up there and went to sleep for a few hours, in full cowboy regalia. And someone did take a photo. I have a photo of it, somewhere. It brought me back to when I was 12 years old, sitting in a treehouse and imagining that I was in a Western somewhere. — James Badge Dale

If there was two birds sitting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first. — Mark Twain

In any organization there ought to be the possibility of discussion ... fence sitting is an art, and it's difficult, and it's important to do, rather than to go headlong in one direction or the other. It's just better to have action, isn't it than to sit on the fence? Not if you're not sure which way to go, it isn't. — Richard P. Feynman

teacher is teaching a class and she sees that Johnny isn't paying attention, so she asks him, "If there are three ducks sitting on a fence, and you shoot one, how many are left?" Johnny says, "None." The teacher asks, "Why?" Johnny says, "Because the shot scared them all off." The teacher says, "No, there are two left, but I like how you're thinking." Then Johnny asks the teacher, "You see three women walking out of an ice cream parlor. One is licking her ice cream, one is sucking her ice cream, and one is biting her ice cream. Which one is married?" And the teacher responds, "The one sucking her ice cream." Johnny says, "No, the one with the wedding ring, but I like how you're — Various

I don't believe in ghosts - not the scary white sheet, boogie-woogie type of ghost anyway. And yet ... I don't disbelieve either. I'm kind of sitting on the ghost fence, dangling my legs on both sides, not sure which way to jump. I think I might be here for a while. — Karen Tayleur

The gate is perfectly simple," Temeraire said. "There is only a bar across the fence, which one can lift very easily, and then it swings open; Nitidus could do it best, for his forehands are the smallest. Though it is difficult to keep the animals inside the pen, and the first time I learned how to open it, they all ran away," he added. "Maximus and I had to chase after them for hours and hours
it was not funny at all," he said, ruffled, sitting back on his haunches and contemplating Laurence with great indignation. — Naomi Novik

Decision-making when things show up instead of when they blow up is actually a habit that can be developed and enhanced. The trick is to get used the clean feeling of having decided, instead of sitting on a fence. — David Allen

How did you meet him?" I asked her.
She smiled. "Here, actually. During a dinner rush. He was sitting at the counter and Isabel knocked a cup of coffee in his lap."
"Ouch," I said.
"No kidding. She was so slammed she just kept moving, so I cleaned it up and made all the apologies. He said it was okay,, no problem, and I laughed and said pretty girls get away with anything." She looked down, twisting her ring a bit so the diamond sat in the centre of her finger, "And he smiled, and looked at Isabel, and said she wasn't his type."
There was a faint cheer from the stadium, and I saw a ball whiz over the far fence and out of sight.
"And so," she went on, "I said, "Oh really? What is your type, exactly?" and he looked up at me and said, "You. — Sarah Dessen

I close my eyes again. There's the smell of mountain snow on the air. I shiver. I would have brought a coat if I'd known I was going to be in Wyoming today. I'm a wuss about cold.
You're my California flower, I remember Tucker saying to me once. We were sitting on the pasture fence at the Lazy Dog, watching his dad break in a colt, the leaves in the trees red just like they are today. I started shivering so hard my teeth actually began to chatter, and Tucker laughed at me and called me that - his delicate California flower - and wrapped me in his coat. — Cynthia Hand

The lush greenness of the pastures infused Shiloh. Overhead, she saw a red-tailed hawk flying in higher and higher circles in the sky. There were bluebirds everywhere, many of them sitting on fence posts. When they took off, that flash of brilliant blue always made her gasp with delight; it was almost an unearthly gorgeous color. — Lindsay McKenna

I'm in love with red. I think it's such a passionate color. Every flag of every country pretty much has red it it. It's power, there's no fence sitting with red. Either you love it or you don't. I think its blood and strength and life. I do love red. I love all colors. Great shades of blue, you find them in nature. They're all magic. — Bryan Batt

Indifference to love or hate is sitting on the fence between the two, refusing to engage either one of them. Indifference, if it had its own way, would prefer to step away from the whole struggle between love and hate, to walk away from the only real game in the world and wallow in its own mediocrity. — Mark R. Woodward

Awoke to find three vultures sitting on the fence. Realizing they were a portent of impending death I shot them. — Bridget Allison

Certainly,' said his mother, 'but first I want to know about the accident with your bicycle.'
Well,' Phillip said, 'if you wanta really know. I was sitting in the basket of my bike ridin' down Mission Hill backwards singing 'Polly Wolly Doodle' and I saw the bread truck comin' and I guess I didn't turn soon enough and I ran into the Wallaces' iron fence and I caught my shoe on the pedal and my pants on a picket and I hit my eye on the handlebars and I don't know what else happened. But, boy, you should have heard the kids and that ole breadman laugh! — Betty MacDonald

But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts, and the negative thoughts seemed to swoop into her mind the way a big flock of black crows takes over the landscape, sitting thick in the trees and on the fence rails and lawns, staring at you in ominous silence. — Jeannette Walls

The grey is certainly inspired by the photo-paintings, and, of course, it's related to the fact that I think grey is an important colour - the ideal colour for indifference, fence-sitting, keeping quiet, despair. In other words, for states of being and situations that affect one, and for which one would like to find a visual expression. — Gerhard Richter