Ferris Quotes & Sayings

Without work, so much of one's identity just evaporates. — Joshua Ferris

before. She recognized it and nailed the diagnosis. According to their best guess, a spider had bitten his arm, causing the rapid onset of a bacterial infection called necrotizing fasciitis. The gangrene-like, flesh-eating infection immediately had begun digging into his skin and muscle. The hospital staff told Hanneman if he had waited another hour to come in, he would have died46-4. The hospital admitted Jeff immediately. — D.X. Ferris

I have never stopped considering not becoming a writer. — Joshua Ferris

If you can get by with quotes from The Godfather and nothing you say matters, that's pretty bleak, don't you think? Don't we want what we say to matter? — Joshua Ferris

She looks at herself in the mirror. The idea is to look sexy again. And for whom exactly? Yourself, of course. Yes, well, that's all wonderfully self-affirming and very strong-minded as any decent woman should be these days, but let's just face facts here and say that when a woman - no, when a person is thinking about feeling sexy, it is always with the idea of someone else in mind. — Joshua Ferris

The connected get more connected while the disconnected get more disconnected. — Joshua Ferris

Everyone desires relationships and community. Most people want to belong to a cohesive, like-minded group. It staves off loneliness. It promotes identity. These are natural and very human instincts. — Joshua Ferris

We have, for generations, been trying to be more inclusive of the word Southern. And a symbol like the confederate flag indicates white only are allowed into that world. And removing the Confederate flag from public view to the pages of history is long overdue. — William R. Ferris

We hated not knowing something. We hated not knowing who was going to walk Spanish down the hall. How would our bills get paid? And where would we find new work? We knew the power of the credit card companies and the collection agencies and the consequences of bankruptcy. Those institutions were without appeal. They put your name into a system, and from that point forward, vital parts of the American dream were foreclosed upon. A backyard swimming pool. A long weekend in Vegas. A low-end BMW. These were not Jeffersonian ideals, perhaps, on par with life and liberty, but at this advanced stage, with the West won and the Cold War over, they, too, seemed among our inalienable rights. — Joshua Ferris

The long matrimonial haul was accomplished in cycles. One cycle of bad breath, one cycle of renewed desire, a third cycle of breakdown and small avoidances, still another of plays and dinners that spurred a conversation between them late at night that reminded her of their like minds and the pleasure they took in each other's talk. And then back to hating him for not taking out the garbage on Wednesday. That was the struggle. Sickness and death, caretaking, the martyrdom of matrimony
that was fluff stuff. When the vows kick in, you don't even blink. You just do. She had to be up for it. — Joshua Ferris

Some days felt longer than other days. Some days felt like two whole days. Unfortunately those days were never weekend days. Our Saturdays and Sundays passed in half the time of a normal workday. In other words, some weeks it felt like we worked ten straight days and had only one day off. — Joshua Ferris

The most unfortunate thing about being an atheist wasn't the loss of God and all the comfort and reassurance of God - no small things - but the loss of a vital human vocabulary. Grace, charity, transcendence: I felt them as surely as any believer, even if we differed on the ultimate cause, and yet I had no right words for them. — Joshua Ferris

Maybe after I saved everyone we could all take a ride on the fucking Ferris wheel ... Fuck was now added to my vocabulary. It was an outstanding word that could basically mean just about anything. It could be used as a noun, verb and adverb. It rolled off the tongue with ease and even if you spoke a foreign language it was difficult not to understand fuck off or off you fuck or fuck you. — Robyn Peterman

The Moon Pie is a bedrock of the country store and rural tradition. It is more than a snack. It is a cultural artifact. — William R. Ferris

Girls shouldn't throw away their lives. They have the opportunity to not have 25 children - to make something of themselves, and use their brains and creativity. I'm just thrilled about that. — Pam Ferris

I don't get self-conscious. I'm not vain in that way. — Pam Ferris

Secrets have a way of making themselves felt, even before you know there's a secret. — Jean Ferris

I placed some of the DNA on the ends of my fingers and rubbed them together. The stuff was sticky. It began to dissolve on my skin. 'It's melting
like cotton candy.'
'Sure. That's the sugar in the DNA,' Smith said.
'Would it taste sweet?'
'No. DNA is an acid, and it's got salts in it. Actually, I've never tasted it.'
Later, I got some dried calf DNA. I placed a bit of the fluff on my tongue. It melted into a gluey ooze that stuck to the roof of my mouth in a blob. The blob felt slippery on my tongue, and the taste of pure DNA appeared. It had a soft taste, unsweet, rather bland, with a touch of acid and a hint of salt. Perhaps like the earth's primordial sea. It faded away.
Page 67, in Richard Preston's biographical essay on Craig Venter, "The Genome Warrior" (originally published in The New Yorker in 2000). — Timothy Ferris

it takes two people to cut you to the heart: an enemy to slander you and a friend to tell you what the enemy said. — Monica Ferris

Phoebe was thinking, Insubordinate. What a lovely word. And when was the last time she'd heard a nice-looking young man use it? Why-never, that's when. What a treat. And to have a ruler who could say conscientious and citizenry in the same sentence. Lovely. — Jean Ferris

And where the Ferris wheel carried its passengers high and brought them low and raised them high and brought them low again, as if it were not merely a carnival ride but also a metaphor for the basic pattern of human experience. — Dean Koontz

As wonderful as dogs can be, they are famous for missing the point. — Jean Ferris

Carpe Diam forever after. — Jean Ferris

The Ferris wheel came to a stop two seats down from the top. "I've been thinking about you a lot this past week," she said, and it came out a lot more moony than she intended. He lowered his gaze from the sky and met her eyes. His smile was mischievous. "Oh? — Sarah Addison Allen

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels The dizzy dancing way you feel As every fairy tale comes real I've looked at love that way. — Joni Mitchell

My dad died when he was 60. I was only 17 and I think, psychologically, that had a huge impact on me, probably more than I realised. — Pam Ferris

We'd seen firsthand how the man handled a crisis. If Marcia decided suddenly to brandish a stapler in a half-threatening manner, he'd fumble with his Motorola and forget his name. — Joshua Ferris

Everything that is good in the day is even better in the night. A merry-go-round, a ferris wheel, a kiss from a girl. — Joe Hill

She wondered if this were what hell was about. Not a place of punishment but of disparity. Those who had done nothing to earn their fate lived like this, while three miles away, others rode the Ferris wheel and children raised their hands joyfully to a hot-air balloon that rained down candy on their heads. — James Lee Burke

It was madness to leave without your useless shit. You came in with it, you left with it
that was how it worked. What would you use to clutter a new office with if not your useless shit? We could remember Old Brizz with this box of useless shit, shifting the box from arm to arm as he talked with the building guy. Of course, Old Brizz never had an office again. His useless shit really was useless. He had cause to leave his useless shit behind. But his was a rare case. All things considered, it was better to take your useless shit with you. — Joshua Ferris

When I did 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', I had the idea on Monday and the following Tuesday it was in budget at Paramount. I couldn't walk. — John Hughes

Chicago at the time owned a lake the size of a sea, several advertising firms, at least six tribes of marauding criminals, healthy herds of sailors grazing free, the first Ferris wheel in all the world, and more wind than it could care for. — Catherynne M Valente

Grief is a terrible, painful place. You can't grind away on grief in a solid way and say, 'I'm going to work on this until it's over' because it will be with you for the rest of your life, whatever you do. So, you deal with it and move on. — Pam Ferris

It's always the guy who gets the diarrhea on the commercial at an inconvenient moment. As if you've ever been in a situation: 'You know, this would be a great time to get the runs, you think? I mean the sun's out, we're on the ferris wheel - what are we waiting for? — Richard Jeni

Because of God, even the imperious ballbreakers, moralizing windbags, and meddling assholes may know love. — Joshua Ferris

Stupid Jimmy Ferris and his amazing mouth and penis. Who needed him? Not me, I could look after myself. — Kylie Scott

Hank Nearly was an avid reader. He arrived early in his brown corduroy coat, with a book taken from the library, copied all the pages on the Xerox machine, and sat at his desk reading what looked passebly like the honest pages of business. He's make it through a three-hundred-page novel every two or three days. — Joshua Ferris

A breeze blows through the alley, pushing me to one side, and I think of scaling the Ferris wheel with Tobias. He kept me steady then. There is no one left to keep me steady now. — Veronica Roth

I would really like that, Betsy, to cheer and jeer and hoot and root alongside a band of brothers. I would love that. But do you have any idea how much attention you have to pay to a Red Sox game? Even a regular-season Red Sox game? — Joshua Ferris

Mrs. Convoy leaned into the desk, flattening her knuckles on it like a linebacker bracing against the hard earth, and with eyeballs floating above her bifocals asked why I felt it necessary to sit in my own waiting room during peak hours. I told her, she said, "And how is the 'complete experience'?" I told her, she said, "And do you think the 'complete experience' might be enhanced by a dentist who tends to his patients in a timely manner?" I told her, she said, "We will not get a reputation for being a drill-and-bill shop just because you tend to patients in a timely manner. Jesus Mary and Joseph," she said. "Sometimes I think we all work for Toots the Clown. — Joshua Ferris

People would say, 'Boy, I really loved you in Ferris Bueller, and it would really aggravate me. I thought I was a one-trick pony, and people had seen the trick. Now that things have worked out and I've gone on to other things, I'm really pleased that people enjoy it. — Alan Ruck

And Phoebe and Sebastian went their separate ways, to the blacksmith shop and the library, after several backward glances that weren't coordinated enough to allow either to know that the other one was looking. — Jean Ferris

I come from a very illustrious line of divorces. We love to get divorced in my family. My mother and father have been married four times each - eight ceremonies with the best of intentions. — Joshua Ferris

Don't think I don't worry about what I'm missing out on. Don't think I'm not haunted knowing that I might be missing out on things that I'd much prefer not to be missing out on. I am haunted, Betsy. You think I alienate myself from society? Of course I alienate myself from society. It's the only way I know of not being constantly reminded of all the ways I'm alienated from society. That doesn't mean I have anything against other people. Envy them? Of course. Marvel at them? Constantly. Secretly study them? Every day. I just don't get any closer to understanding them. And liking something you don't understand, estranged from it without reason, longing to commune with it - who'd ask for it? — Joshua Ferris

Why not just go with it? Just walk the dog and send the tweets and eat the scones and play with the hamsters and ride the bicycles and watch the sunsets and stream the movies and never worry about any of it? I didn't know it could be that easy. I didn't know that until just now. That sounds good to me. I think I might be able to do that. Who couldn't do that? It would take somebody mentally ill not to do that, and I'm not mentally ill. — Joshua Ferris

We were in the gondolas at The Venetian. You said you couldn't swim, that I'd have to save you if we capsized."
His Adam's apple jumped. "Yeah."
"I was terrified for you."
"I know. You hung onto me so tight I could barely breathe."
I drew back so I could see his face.
"Why do you think we stayed on them for so long?" he asked. "You were practically sitting in my lap."
"Can you swim?"
He laughed quietly. "Of course I can swim. I don't even think the water was that deep."
"It was all a ruse. You're tricky, David Ferris."
"And you're funny, Evelyn Thomas." His face relaxed, his eyes softening again. — Kylie Scott

Here's what I say - when you don't know or can't know the answer to a question, why not believe the answer you like best? It's as valid as any of the others - and it might be right. — Jean Ferris

I listened to Karen Woo give an explaination of photosynthesis once," he said. "God only knows why they were discussing photosynthesis.They hung on her every word, like she was a PBS special. Her explaination didn't even involve sunlight. These people will believe anything. They will say anything. — Joshua Ferris

I think a rotisserie is like a really morbid ferris wheel for chickens. It's a strange piece of machinery ... We will take the chicken, kill it, impale it, and then rotate it. And I'll be damned if I'm not hungry! Because spinning chicken carcasses make my mouth water! I like dizzy chicken. With a side of potatoes of some sort. — Mitch Hedberg

I did put on weight for the last half of the film, but the Ferris wheel scene was shot with a harness on me so that if I fell I wouldn't fall all the way. — Ryan Gosling

It was uncertain. She was in her early forties. Breast cancer. No one could identify exactly how everyone had come to know this fact. Was it a fact? Some people called it rumor. But in fact there was no such thing as rumor. There was fact, and there was what did not come up in conversation. — Joshua Ferris

He stood just inside the door and took stock. Everything in it had been taken for granted. How had that happened again? He had promised himself not to take anything for granted and now he couldn't recall the moment that promise had given way to the everyday. It was not likely one single moment. — Joshua Ferris

Arms wrapped around [Darcy's] abdomen from the back. Fingers felt for the spot above his navel. Two fists pushed in and upward. Darcy felt a violent squeezing sensation. The offending prawn shot out of his gullet, flew across the table, and knocked Tate's wine glass over...Tate looked down at the partially chewed shrimp in disgust and covered it with his napkin. — Donna Warner & Gloria Ferris

There is a mythic view of the South that's symbolized by the film "Gone With The Wind" that looks back fondly at slavery as a time when everything was happily in place - in place for whites. — William R. Ferris

Where you find obesity, you'll find poverty. It's a reflection of the South's struggle to raise its standard of living. — William R. Ferris

One thing that I discovered about myself is I really don't like traveling. I feel like it's a terrible personal failing, but I was so satisfied to arrive at the conclusion. — Joshua Ferris

We had any number of clocks surrounding us, and every one of them at one time or another exhibited a lively sense of humor. — Joshua Ferris

They were like two inviolable spheres touching at a fine point in their curves, touching but failing to penetrate, failing to breathe the other's air. — Joshua Ferris

She got to you, too, huh?" I said, sliding onto the bench seat across from him.
"Actually, I called her." Luca grinned. "I'm vomiting from a possible case of food poisoning. You?"
"Sudden onset menstruation."
He nodded respectfully. "Classic."
"Yeah, but I should have gone for something more long-term. Yours will get you out of the whole afternoon. Ferris Bueller would be proud. — Rachel Vincent

I think I would have had trouble living with someone who didn't know what it was like to be an actor. — Pam Ferris

if you really wanna save yourself, you gotta be willing to throw someone else a line, grab onto someone else and save them, help them, hold them. You gotta be willing to see another person's suffering and pain and look them in the eye and say, I know how you feel. I. Know. How. You. Feel. — Amy Ferris

G had fallen asleep and tumbled into the motor assembly of the Ferris wheel. It spat him out. — Fred Barnett

We told him to get on with it. We liked wasting time, but almost nothing was more annoying than having our wasted time wasted on something not worth wasting it on. — Joshua Ferris

I think a proud Southerner is a Southerner who is aware of his or her past, and being proud of one's past does not mean you accept it. It means that you realize that we've come through the fire, and we're headed in another direction. — William R. Ferris

Hey ya'll, you'll never believe what I just heard! Apparently some girl totally flipped out on the Ferris wheel."
I paled.
"Oh God, it was you wasn't it?" he looked at me and busted out laughing. "It figures. — Micalea Smeltzer

I would eventually realize that I didn't want to be with Ferris any more than he wanted to be with me--we were way too much alike. Remember that in the movie, Ferris doesn't date a female Ferris. He dates Solane--the one on the ground looking up at him adoringly as he goes by on the float, wondering, How does he do it? I wasn't that girl. I wanted to be up on the float. — Kristin Newman

It wasn't till they were on the bridge that Delly asked RB, "So, Ferris Boyd's your favorite?" She didn't mind, mostly.
RB answered so fast, though, she knew he wasn't fibbing. "She's my favorite friend," he told her. "You're my favorite everything. — Katherine Hannigan

The older I get, the less I know. By that I mean the less I am sure of. I view people with strong opinions on the big stuff with distrust. I don't think we should have certain certainties on faith and politics; I think we should be open-minded. — Pam Ferris

If in large part we were concerned only with making it through another day without getting laid off, there was a smaller part just hoping to leave for the night without contributing to someone's lifetime of hurt. — Joshua Ferris

My family originally lived in Brooklyn. Our first apartment was a little place above my father and uncle's hardware store in Coney Island. Now, don't get the impression that we were surrounded by merry-go-rounds, roller coasters and Ferris wheels. Nope, this was a little side street. — Gilbert Gottfried

As William Ferris is fond of saying, "in Africa when an older person dies, a library burns. — Jacqueline L. Tobin

Once you've ridden the roller coaster, the Ferris wheel's kinda restricting. — Daria Snadowsky

Hope is a Ferris wheel-
It takes Low and High;
And when you reach the Top,
It's like you can touch The Sky!
And when it takes you Down-
Hope becomes A Thing
That, When you're getting Off,
You take With you to Bring. — Robin Herrera

You're not dying, you just can't think of anything good to do. — Ferris Bueller

I believe people think as a group more often than we might realize or care to admit. We like to believe that we act as individuals and nothing more, but time and again - in corporations and business, in politics and religion, in fashion and culture, and in friendships and social circles - we think and do as one. — Joshua Ferris

What they used to call soul. What they used to call spirit. Indivisible, complete, that thing made of mind, distinct from body.
He thought he had one - a soul, a spirit, a nature, an essence. He thought his mind was proof of it.
If mood, facial expression, hunger pain, love of color, if everything human and happenstance came not from the soul, the core of self, but from synapses firing and electrical signals, from the stuff in the brain that could be manipulated and X-rayed, what could he say about himself with any degree of certainty? Was mind just body more refined?
He refused to believe that. — Joshua Ferris

No connection, you would agree. But things can come together in strange ways. The wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed points they are, and best left undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late. — Natalie Babbitt

I'm starting to believe that happily ever after includes people doing things that upset each other. We all get cranky, or impatient, or worried, or careless enough to do or say things that hurt someone else. Like it or not, that's normal. We can't blame it all on Olympia's bad energy. The important part is that we feel sorry about what we've done and make up for it. That's something Olympia never did. — Jean Ferris

Wolves are very resourceful. All they need to survive is for people not to shoot them. — Bob Ferris

We didn't know what he did on the weekends. What sort of person showed up on Monday and had no interest in sharing what transpired during the two days of the week when one's real life took place? His weekends were long dark shadows of mystery. In all likelihood, he spent his days off in the office, cultivating his master plan. Mondays we'd come in refreshed and unsuspecting and he would already be there, ready to spring something on us. Maybe he never left. Certainly he never came around with a coffee mug to palaver with us on a Monday morning. We didn't judge him for that, so long as he didn't judge us for our custom of easing into a new workweek. — Joshua Ferris

Catholics speak, like baseball players, in the coded language of gesture. Sure, the Roman Catholic Church is an abomination to man and a disgrace to God, but it comes with a highly structured Mass, several sacred pilgrimages, the oldest songs, the most impressive architecture, and a whole bunch of things to do whenever you enter the church. Taken all together, they make you one with your brother. — Joshua Ferris

Regarding 'Ferris Bueller,' I was in the Czech Republic once, in Prague, making a movie at the same time as Jeffrey Jones, who played the principal, who was making a different movie. The Super Bowl was going to be playing at this bar at midnight, so we decided we would go watch the Super Bowl at this bar at midnight in Prague together. — Edie McClurg

She said, "As long as we're with each other
"
"We know we're in exactly the right place," he finished. — Jean Ferris

We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. — Joshua Ferris

In the distance, they begin shutting down the rides and turning off lights. There's something beautiful and eerie about a darkened, unmoving Ferris wheel. — Becky Albertalli

I think I heard it [ Ferris Bueller's Day Off ] earlier. This was being played on a station in San Francisco called Live 105, which was a new wave station. It was one of the first stations to change its format in the early '80s. There was this wave of really strange music coming from Europe like Kraftwork and Freur. — Margaret Cho

But I did like looking at her. It was harder now, knowing all the ways she sucked, but she was still gorgeous. — Joshua Ferris

Whatever else he might be, Jimmy Ferris was special and complicated, beautiful and beastly, all rolled into one. — Kylie Scott

My first job is to write a book that I believe is compelling and deserves the long sustained attention that any novel requires, and to worry about the commerce only late in the game. — Joshua Ferris

Soon I was incorporating :( and ;) and ;( too and after that the live emoticons, and now, without any intention of ever reducing the enormity of my human emotions to these shallow shortcuts, to this typographical juvenilia, I went around all day reducing them and reducing them, endowing emotions with, and requiring them to carry the subtle quivering burdens of my inner life. — Joshua Ferris

Sometimes things that seem like good ideas in theory, in practice turn out to be the worst kinds of boneheaded blunders. — Jean Ferris

All broken hearts are circumstantial. Every lovelorn jerk is the victim of bad timing, good intentions, and someone else's poor decision making. — Joshua Ferris

Adults are always telling young people, 'These are the best years of your life.' Are they? I don't know. Sometimes when adults say this to children I look into their faces. They look like someone on the top seat of the Ferris wheel who has had too much cotton candy and barbecue. They'd like to get off and be sick but everyone keeps telling them what a good time they're having. — Erma Bombeck

I never did anything on game night, even though I recorded the games and could always watch them later, because those nights were sacrosanct, and if I gave up the one sacrosanct thing, where would I be and what would I have? — Joshua Ferris

I've always had this fantasy of being at the top of a Ferris wheel with a gorgeous guy and having him kiss me."
"Really? That's your fantasy?"
"One of them." She narrowed her eyes, but it didn't diminish their light.
"And I fit the bill?" he said, unable to stop himself from moving his stare to her mouth. Christ, he wasn't expecting her to say any of that, but now that she had, he had the urge to fulfill all her fantasies.
"You asked." She shrugged and started to turn away.
He caught her jaw and tilted it up to his. "Do you want me to kiss you?"
Long, dark eyelashes reached the arch of her brows. "We shouldn't"
"That's not what I asked."
She squirmed, her breath caught.
"Yes," she whispered. — Robin Bielman

Everything was always something, but something - and here was the rub - could never be everything. — Joshua Ferris

Names generate meaning in a short amount of space - they provoke thoughts, questions. That's something I like doing. Of course, you have to be careful. Sometimes it can alienate the reader, it can be another level of mediation, to make a character carry the great burden of a metaphoric name. The character can be a device before he or she becomes a person, and that can be a bad thing for a writer who wants to offer up a kind of emotional proximity in the work. It's a constant struggle, the desire to be playful and the desire to communicate on some very stark emotional level. — Joshua Ferris

Certainty a strange Ferris wheel of a statement! — John Allen Paulos

After I left college I thought, very naively, that either you became someone interesting - an artist - or you went into academia. If you ended up in an office you were dull and lacking. And I ended up in an office. — Joshua Ferris

Anne had many friends and male admirers by the time she was twelve. — Ferris Smithers