Getting Told Off Quotes & Sayings

I had crossed the yard to him slowly, watching him draw closer, baffled by the way my heart was skittering around my chest. Then he'd picked me up and spun me in a circle, and I'd clung to him, breathing in his sweet, familiar smell, shocked by how much I'd missed him. Dimly, I'd been aware that I still had a shard of the blue cup in my hand, that it was digging into my palm, but I didn't want to let go.
When he finally set me down and ambled off to the kitchen to find his lunch, I stood there, my palm dripping blood, my head still spinning, knowing that everything had changed.
Ana Kuya had scoled me for getting blood on the clean kitchen floor. She'd bandaged my hand and told me it would heal. But I knew it would just go on hurting.
In the creaking silence of the cell, Mal kissed the scar on my palm, the wound made so long ago by the edge of that broken cup, a fragile thing I'd thought beyond repair. — Leigh Bardugo

Phase one, my dear, is find your inner hoochie mama."
"Ahh, I get it." Sally nodded. "It's all about embracing your inner skank."
Jen shook her head. "I think the air is thinner here because you two are clearly not getting enough oxygen to the brain."
"Oh, come on. Give us a break. Out of all of us, you've got inner skank-embracing down to an art form," Sally told her.
"True, very true, Sally. I am expert on all things skank. — Quinn Loftis

Then why are you getting dressed?" "Maybe I don't like being the only naked one in the room," I said sarcastically. And immediately regretted it. "That is easily remedied," he told me, and pulled off his sweater. — Karen Chance

In the past, work was defined primarily by putting in time, and secondarily on getting results. "We need to flip that model," Ressler told me. "No matter what kind of business you're in, it's time to throw away the tardy slips, time clocks and outdated, industrial-age thinking. — Daniel H. Pink

Rick told me, a little later, I should be living in community. He said I should have people around bugging me and getting under my skin because without people I could not grow
I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human. We are born into families, he said, and we are needy at first as children because God wants us together, living among one another, not hiding ourselves under logs like fungus. You are not a fungus, he told me, you are a human, and you need other people in your life in order to be healthy. — Donald Miller

The man behind the counter at the donut store had been somewhat less than courteous ever since I had prematurely tried to hypnotize him during my first month of practice. Now as I re-entered the donut store he fixed me with a chilly glare. I sauntered up to the counter, then I threw upon him my hypnotizingest glare. "You are getting sleep," I told him. "No, you are getting sleepy," he retorted, his hypnotic eyes boring into mine. The son-of-a-bitch had been studying hypnotism too! "You are a young Georage Washington, and you've been chopping down the cherry tree," I asserted, and he became the boy President. "I cannot tell a lie," he piped in a childish voice. But it didn't last, and he shook my control free. "You are Anne Boleyn," he said, and it was true! "Don't cut off my head!" I begged... — Michael Kupperman

Getting to do 'December Songs' in a cabaret-style format was so interesting because it's like a one-woman song cycle that actually tells a story. It feels like a theatrical experience more than a cabaret because I didn't talk in between. We went from one song to the next, nine songs in a row - bam - I told the story in half an hour. — Laura Osnes

Isabelle. Simon's mouth moved to form the shape of her name, pressing it into his pillow. He'd told himself he wasn't going to think about her, not until he was really getting somewhere in the Acedemy. Not until he was on his way to being better, being the person she wanted him to be. — Cassandra Clare

Somehow, Sydney had an internal clock that told her when time was up. I think it was part of her inherent ability to keep track of a hundred things at once. Not me. In these moments, my thoughts were usually focused on getting her shirt off and whether I'd get past the bra this time. So far, I hadn't. — Richelle Mead

I thought you'd be gone by now." Velkan
"Hardly, I have to much to do." Esperetta
"Such as?" Velkan
"Apologize to you." Esperetta
"Why would you do that?" Velkan
"Because I'm stupid and pigheaded. Judgmental. Unforgiving. Mistrustful
you can stop me at anytime, you know?" Esperetta
"Why should i? You're on quite a roll. Besides, you missed the worst flaw." Velkan
"And that is?" Esperetta
"Hotheaded." Velkan
"I learned that one from you." Esperetta
"How so?" Velkan
"Remember that time you threw your boots into the fire because you had trouble getting them off?"
"I never did that." Velkan
"Yes, you did. You also gave your favorite saddle to the stable master because it scratched your leg as you dismounted and told him he could have it but, personally, you'd burn it, too." Esperetta — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I don't suppose that she gave you the job based on looks alone?"
Adrian had been staring off but now flashed me a big smile. "Why, Sage, you sweet talker."
"That's not what I meant! What happened?"
He shrugged. "I told the truth."
"Adrian!"
"I'm serious. She asked me what my greatest strength was. I said getting along with people."
"That's not bad." I admitted.
"Then she asked what my greatest weakness was. And I said, 'Where should I start?'"
"Adrian!"
"Stop saying my name like that. I told her the truth. By the time I was on the fourth one, she told me I could go. — Richelle Mead

The barn was dark from the storm, and we couldn't find the harness, which no one had used in years. Old Jake, who had sprained his good foot falling off a horse and was hobbling around worse than ever, started getting panicky at the idea of the dam giving out and washing away the cattle, but I told him to hush his mouth. We all knew what was at stake, and if we were going to save the ranch, we needed clear heads. — Jeannette Walls

I can't see the future," Nico told him, "but I can often tell when people are close to death. You're not. I don't know when that piece of firewood will burn up. Eventually, we all run out of firewood. But it won't be soon, Praetor Zhang. You and Hazel ... you've got a lot more adventures ahead of you. You're just getting started. — Rick Riordan

Annabeth Thalia and I hadn't seen each other in months but between
the blizzard and the thought of what we were about to do we were too nervous to talk much.
Except for my mom. She talks more when she's nervous. By the time we finally got to Westover Hall it was getting dark and she'd told Annabeth and Thalia every embarrassing baby story there was to tell about me. — Rick Riordan

Happiness meant taking risks. No one had ever told Paxton that before. It was like a secret the world had been keeping from her. Paxton didn't take risks, at least not when she was sober. She knew what she was getting into before she ever committed to anything. The fact that all the changes she'd made in the past few days scared her to death had to be a good sign. — Sarah Addison Allen

When one of the down Easters boasted of not having any gray hair, but who was bald, Dad told the story of how St. Peter had given his choice of getting bald or getting gray and he chose the latter. Have never smoked, chewed nor used tea coffee or liquor except for medicinal purposes. The want of it is more than the worth of it. — Hal Turner

The first generation of therapists doing this work were told by their clients that the one massive cult was everywhere, knew everything, had access to state-of-the-art technology, and was willing to kill both clients and therapists to stop the information from getting out." []
"The reality is that even before stories of ritual abuse and mind control began coming out to therapists, the groups had agreed on what kind of disinformation to spread, so that clients would be afraid to tell their therapists what had happened to them, and therapists would be afraid to work with these clients." [ ]
"We know that there is not one massive Satanic cult, but many different interrelated groups, including religious, military/political, and organized crime, using mind control on children and adult survivors. We know that there are effective treatments. We know that many of the paralyzing beliefs our clients lived by are the results of lies and tricks perpetrated by their abusers. — Alison Miller

You told me Dorian would fix the world, make it better. But if he's gone, if we made the mistake today in keeping him alive, then I will find another way to attain that future. And another one after that, if I have to. I will keep getting back up, no matter how many times those butchers shove me down. — Sarah J. Maas

You know," I tease, "you still haven't told me why you're here. You were ... passing by? Wanted
to brag about getting a week off from school?"
"Oh. Uh, right." Josh sort of laughs and glances out my window. "I was just wondering if you
wanted to go out."
Holy.
Shit.
"I'm on my way to Album," he continues, referring to a nearby comics shop. "Since we were
talking about that new Sfar earlier, I thought if you weren't busy, you might want to come along."
... Oh.
My heart beats like a cracked-out drummer. Josh, don't do that to a lady. I'm still clutching the
book about the shipwreck, so I set it down to wipe my sweaty palms. "Sure". — Stephanie Perkins

Democracy triumphed in the cold war because it was a battle of values - between one system that gave preeminence to the state and another that gave preeminence to the individual and freedom. Not long ago, I was told about an incident that illustrated this difference: An American scholar, on his way to the airport before a flight to the Soviet Union, got into a conversation with his cab driver, a young man who said that he was still getting his education. The scholar asked, "When you finish your schooling, what do you want to be, what do you want to do?" The young man answered, "I haven't decided yet." After the scholar arrived at the airport in Moscow, his cab driver was also a young man who happened to mention he was still getting his education, and the scholar, who spoke Russian, asked, "When you finish your schooling, what do you want to be, what do you want to do?" The young man answered: "They haven't told me yet. — Ronald Reagan

She said Robert Joyner had killed himself with a gun. And then I asked why, and then she told me that he was getting a divorce and was sad about it.'
'Lots of people get divorces and don't kill themselves,' I said.
'I know,' she said, excitement in her voice. 'That's what I told her. — John Green

No," Ted said, returning his gaze to James, "I do need to tell you. As much for me as for you. Because I haven't told anybody else yet, not even Grandmum. I think if I don't tell somebody, I'll go nutters. See, I couldn't sleep because I was so hungry. I was starved! I lay there in bed the first time it happened, telling myself that this was just crazy. I'd had a nice big dinner and everything, just like normal. But no matter what I told myself, my stomach just kept telling me it wanted food. And not just anything. It wanted meat. Raw meat. Fresh-off-the-bone meat. You see what I'm getting at? — G. Norman Lippert

"Okay, what'd I do?" he asked.
"Nothing. I'm just tired."
"Uh-uh. I suspected I was getting the cold shoulder earlier, but with everything going on, I wasn't sure. Now I'm sure. You're giving me the look."
"What look?"
"The Maya's-pissed-with-Corey look. Fifty percent disappointment, thirty percent disapproval, twenty percent exasperation. I've done something you're not happy about."
I hesitated, then blurted, "Rafe told me what you said about Daniel."
He frowned. "You're going to need to be a little more specific."
"In Salmon Creek, when Rafe and I started getting together. You told him to back off because Daniel ... " I glanced at the open door and lowered my voice. "Because Daniel likes me." — Kelley Armstrong

I started getting these attacks in 2009, just as my music career was taking off. I'd be doing photo-shoots and started to feel like I was having heart attacks. Increasingly I found it difficult to step outside my flat. Things started to get better after I saw a therapist, who told me I needed to make peace with my panic attacks. — Ellie Goulding

The prevailing view was that girls were outside of school because of the resistance of families to their education. But when I visited a local village, what everyone told me - the chiefs, the parents, the children - was that girls weren't in school because it was the boys that had a better chance of getting paid work in the future. — Ann Cotton

Filled with hope, Ico looked into Yorda's eyes. He felt like was looking into an hourglass, trying to pick through the grains of sand for some truth buried there long ago. He hadn't found anything yet, but the warmth of Yorda's hands in his told him that he was getting close. — Miyuki Miyabe

A lady?' Jem raised his head. His face as scarlet. 'After all those things she said about you, a lady?'
'She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different than mine, maybe ... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her-I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see through it no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.' (p.112) — Harper Lee

Bhutan does seem a bit unreal at times. Hardly anybody in the U.S. knows where it is. I have friends who still think the entire country is a figment of my imagination. When I was getting ready to move there, and I told people I was going to work in Bhutan, they'd inevitably ask, "Where's Butane?"
It is near Africa," I'd answer, to throw them off the trail. "It's where all the disposable lighters come from."
They'd nod in understanding. — Linda Leaming

I sometimes wish I could go off in search of something," he declared, "but before getting even that far, I myself wouldn't have the slightest idea what to search for. Now my father, he's someone who's been searching for something all his life. He's still searching today. Ever since I was a little boy, my father's told me about the white sheep that came to him in his dreams. So I always thought that's what life is like. An ongoing search. — Haruki Murakami

A hand touched my shoulder, shaking me. I was back on the bus. It was dark and warm and I just wanted to sleep, but Chloe kept shaking my shoulder.
"Tori?" she whispered. "We're at a truck stop. It's Derek. He ... he's not feeling good. It could be the Change again. He needs to get off the bus. I'm going with him."
"Mmmph."
"Are you awake? Did you hear what I said?"
"Yeah, yeah. Derek Changing. You going."
She said something else, but I was already drifting back to sleep. Then she was gone.
I bolted upright in the pool house. Chloe had told me they were getting off the bus. Damn it! I'd screwed up. — Kelley Armstrong

And tried to redesign the computers using these newer parts. The challenge he set himself was to replicate the design using the fewest components possible. Each night he would try to improve his drawing from the night before. By the end of his senior year, he had become a master. "I was now designing computers with half the number of chips the actual company had in their own design, but only on paper." He never told his friends. After all, most seventeen-year-olds were getting their kicks in other ways. On Thanksgiving weekend of his senior year, Wozniak visited the University of Colorado. It was closed for the holiday, but he found an engineering student who took him on a tour of the labs. He begged his father to let him go there, even — Walter Isaacson

I've got a sleeping bag in the car." "You're getting me to spend the night on the beach with you." "I told you. I'm very romantic." Standing, Fletch brushed the sand off his skin. "And I told you romance is dead." "That's just wishful thinking," Fletch said. "I'll get the sleeping bag. — Anonymous

Zombies are the middle children of the otherworldly family. Vampires are the oldest brother who gets to have a room in the attic, all tripped out with a disco ball and shag carpet. Werewolves are the youngest, the babies, always getting pinched and told they're cute. With all that attention stolen away from the middle child Zombie, no wonder she shuffles off grumbling, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. — Kevin James Breaux

Julie has told Faye that she believes lovers go through three different stages in getting really to know one another. First they exchange anecdotes and inclinations. Then each tells the other what she believes. Then each observes the relation between what the other says she believes and what she in fact does. — David Foster Wallace

I told you.. whenever I'm afraid to write, I still do it. It's like going to a place that you've never been. You are not familiar with the streets, establishments, and even the kind of people that you may encounter as you go along your way. But once you get in there, you enjoy anything about that place and you are getting usual to its culture and beautiful places. — Alexina Benavidez

Slowly, slowly pulling up. Or grabbing hold of Debby's arm, vise-like, for an Indian rub and what starts as a joke gets more and more frantic, him rubbing until he draws speckles of blood, his teeth grinding. She could see him getting that same look Runner got when he was around the kids: jacked up and tense. "Dad needs to leave." "Geez, Patty, not even a hi before you toss me out? Come on, let's talk, I got a business proposition for you." "I'm in no position to make a business deal, Runner," she said. "I'm broke." "You're never as broke as you say," he said with a leer, and twisted his baseball cap backward on stringy hair. He'd meant it to sound jokey, but it came out menacing, as if she'd better not be broke if she knew what was good for her. He dumped the girls off him and walked over to her, standing too close as always, beer sweat sticking his longjohn shirt to his chest. "Didn't you just sell the tiller, Patty? Vern Evelee told — Gillian Flynn

I have to retain the illusion of things happening, I have to make Henry feel more and more intensely loved, I have to give him the belief that things are getting better and better because he is a king and all his life everyone has told him that he shall have the very best. He has been promised cream and gold and honey, I cannot give him 'wait.' How am I to keep going? How am I to do it?" I — Philippa Gregory

He told me he was used to getting what he wanted. — Celia Conrad

If she'd said she loved me and still did all those cruel and careless things, would my child mind have decided to accept that as the definition of love?
Probably.
Would I have ended up believing that love was manipulative and hurtful and full of pain, gotten use to being shoved aside, sworn at and disregarded, picked up and hugged, and then slapped around for getting in the way, starved and smiled at, neglected and cursed, told I was no good and would never amount to anything, then hefted high and proudly shown off down at the Walmart, introduced as a little pisser and a big mistake in the same breath?
Yes, I would have, because if she said she loved me and then acted that way I would have thought that was how you loved someone, and how someone should love you back. — Laura Wiess

Sabeth listened when I told her about my experiences, but as one listens to an old man; without interrupting, politely, without believing, without getting excited. — Max Frisch

This is a kill-or-be-killed scenario, leech," Regin the Radiant, a glowing-skinned millennium-old swordswoman, told Ellie in a baleful tone. "So raise your weapon and prepare for your end. 'Cause I'm about to take your head."
Ellie yawned. Ten days of this was getting old. "Girl, I don't wanna play video games anymore. — Kresley Cole

People use me as a figurehead, and to me that misses the point and is blatantly offensive to thin women - my sister, for one. Curves don't epitomise a woman. Saying, 'Skinny is ugly' should be no more acceptable than saying fat is. I find all this stuff a very controlling and effective way of making women obsess over their weight, instead of exploiting their more important attributes, such as intellect, strength and power. We could be getting angry about unequal pay and unequal opportunities, but we're too busy being told we're not thin enough or curvy enough. We're holding ourselves back. — Robyn Lawley

The starry sky is absolutely gorgeous tonight. Maybe I'll see a shooting star and can make a wish...especially since I'm getting told to get off my phone. — April Mae Monterrosa

He loved getting crucified at the summer and winter solstices," Norma told Harry. Norma listened while the invisible presence added something to this. "He says you should try it, Harry. A crucifixion and a good blow job. Heaven on Earth. — Clive Barker

I brought soup just in case you changed your mind. Are the pains easing up at all?" He manfully kept the hopeful note out of his tone.
"All the activity must have set them off. They seem to be getting farther apart, and they're shorter in duration. From all the research I've done, that means false labor."
He felt like a man given a reprieve right before a death sentence, but he kept his features expressionless. He wanted her to count on him, and she couldn't do that if she knew he was petrified of delivering a baby.
"Will you try to eat something?" He walked farther into the room and set the tray on the end table. "It might help."
She flashed him a
smile that told him he didn't know what he was talking about, but she picked up the bowl of soup and spoon, sank down in the middle of the bed, tailor fashion, her back against the headboard, and regarded him steadily. — Christine Feehan

I tried the obvious route of hourly jobs and community college, and it just never worked for me. I'd been told for so long that the path to success was paved with a series of boxes you checked off, starting with getting a degree and getting a job, and I kept trying and failing at these, it sometimes seemed that I was destined for a life in the loser lane. But I always suspected that I was destined for more, and that I was capable of, something bigger. — Sophia Amoruso

Good stitchery," Kelsea told him. "But it will scar anyway, won't it?"
The Fetch nodded. "I'm not God, nor am I the queen's surgeon." He gave her a mocking bow. "But it won't fester, and you can tell people that you took the wound in battle."
"Battle?"
"It was a battle getting all that armor off you, and I'll tell the world so."
Kelsea smiled, put down the mirror, and turned to him. — Erika Johansen

Every February, (Charles)Shultz drew a strip about Charlie Brown's failure to get any valentines. Schroeder, in one installment, chides Violet for trying to fob off a discarded valentine on Charlie Brown several days after Valentine's Day, and Charlie Brown shoves Schroeder aside with the words "Don't interfere
I'll take it!" But the story Schulz told about his own childhood experience with valentines was very different. When he was in first grade, he said, his mother helped him make a valentine for each of his classmates, so that nobody would be offended by not getting one, but he felt too shy to put them in the box at the front of the classroom, and so he took them all home again to his mother. — Jonathan Franzen

But Apollo told me."
The laugh that came out of me sounded incredibly bitter. "Of course he did. And where was Apollo when I was getting my ass handed to me, by the way?"
A pained look crossed her face, and I immediately regretted saying that. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "He was probably off doing important god stuff." Or chasing nymphs. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; 'Why, what a long sleep you've had!' 'Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, 'It was a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it's getting late.' So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been. — Lewis Carroll

A story is told of Alfred Adler, one of Freud's early followers, who once interviewed a prospective patient at great length, taking a detailed family history, and getting as elaborate an account as possible of what the man was suffering from. At the end of this three-hour consultation Adler apparently said to the man, 'What would you do if you were cured?' The man answered him, and Adler said, 'Well, go and do it then.' That was the treatment. — Adam Phillips

Prediction is structurally inseparable from the business of punditry: It creates the essential image of indefatigable authority that is punditry's very architecture; it flows from that calcified image, and it provides the substance for the story that keeps getting told about the inevitability of American progress. — Rick Perlstein

Whereas before I was a young, blonde girl who would do what she was told. I know who I am as a person and I'm getting damn strong. — Britney Spears

You're not from around here. You talk funny." "Alabama. Where bears don't eat people, it don't usually snow, and it's customary for the new guy getting told the tale to buy the drinks for the men doing the telling. — Larry Correia

I want everything,' she replied with a faint, wry smile. 'You know, I said that once to a friend of mine, and he told me that the real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it. — Gregory David Roberts

According to Hoge and colleagues (2007), the key to reducing stigma is to present mental health care as a routine aspect of health care, similar to getting a check up or an X-ray. Soldiers need to understand that stress reactions-difficulty sleeping, reliving incidents in your mind, and emotional detachment-are common and expected after combat... The soldier should be told that wherever they go, they should remember that what they're feeling is "normal and it's nothing to be ashamed of. — Joan Beder

Billy's one and only moment of candor was when I parked him in front of my computer to play a game. He took one look at the Noah's Ark display and his whole face flinched like someone had hit him. He told me that the snow leopard is extinct. The last surviving specimen died in a zoo a few weeks back. "The snow leopard was my favorite," he said. Then he sat down at the computer and within about 30 seconds he was lost in a realistic prison interior, shooting the guards' heads off, blowing doors open, getting killed. — Michel Faber

Be sure to keep my ruby choker and the pearl and emerald set for the person you will marry," she said during one of these walks. "I'm not planning on getting married any time soon," I told her, and she said that she wished she could say the same for dying. Ultimately, I disobeyed her. After she was gone I was unable to open up and examine the contents of all those flat red boxes she'd kept hidden in a suitcase on her closet shelf, never mind set something aside for the sake of my future happiness. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Your dad does like you. In fact, he wants to protect you from me. He told me to not bother trying to get my claws into you and drag you down to my level.
Bother. Definitely bother. I like the idea of you getting your claws into me. — Eileen Cook

Her type of woman has disappeared in this country today: free, brash, disobedient, aware of their body as a gift, not as a sin or a shame. The only time I saw a cold shadow come over her was when she told me about her domineering, polygamous father, whose lecherous eyes stirred up doubt and panic in her. Books delivered her from her family and offered her a pretext for getting away from Constantine; as soon as she could, she'd enrolled in the University of Algiers. — Kamel Daoud

We can't all leave this country, Bijan had told me-this is our home. The world is a large place, my magician had said when I went to him with my woes. You can write and teach wherever you are. You will be read more and heard better, in fact, once you are over there. To go or not to go? In the long run, it's all very personal, my magician reasoned. I always admired your former colleague's honesty, he said. Which former colleague? Dr. A, the one who said his only reason for leaving was because he liked to drink beer freely. I am getting sick of people who cloak their personal flaws and desires in the guise of patriotic fervor. They stay because they have no means of living anywhere else, because if they leave, they won't be the big shots they are over here; but they talk about sacrifice for the homeland. And then those who do leave claim they've gone in order to criticize and expose the regime. Why all these justifications? — Azar Nafisi

Fate had a cruel sense of humor. It had been all his fault, anyway, whatever Mick or Gillia told him. Careless preoccupation and utter stupidity. Boyhood ignorance and negligence. He was only getting what he deserved, over and over again, for the rest of his life. If only in his dreams. — V.S. Carnes

We have to be really sensitive to making sure were not creating any stories that don't feel like they're ready to be told ... We have to make sure we're getting the right story and the right content from the talent we work with. — Diane Nelson

That's not what I meant! What happened?"
He shrugged. "I told the truth."
"Adrian!"
"I'm serious. She asked me what my greatest strength was. I said getting along with people."
"That not bad," I admitted.
"Then she asked me what my greatest weakness was. And I said, 'Where should I start.'"
"Adrian! — Richelle Mead

I'll be getting you for this,' Halt had told him as he dabbed the diguisting mixture on the worst of the cuts. 'That soot is filthy. I'll probably come down with half a dozen infections.'
Probably,' Horace had replied, distracted by his task. 'But we'll only need you for today.'
Which was not a very comforting thought for Halt. — John Flanagan

Sampling, statisticians have told us, is a much more effective way of getting a good census. — Rob Lowe

Once I told him I thought beating your son was a most uncivilized method of getting your own way. He said I'd about as much sense as the post I was standing next to, if as much. He said respect for your elders was one of the cornerstones of civilized behavior, and until I learned that, I'd better get used to looking at my toes while one of my barbaric elders thrashed my arse off. — Diana Gabaldon

How many times have I told you, Magnus? Behave professionaly in a professional setting. Which means no being rude to Nephilim, and also no getting attached to Nephilim."
"I never get attached to Nephilim!" Magnus protested.
Ragnor coughed, and in the midst of the cough said something that sounded like "blerondale."
"Well," said Magnus. "Hardly ever. — Cassandra Clare

People write books for children and other people write about the books written for children but I don't think it's for the children at all. I that all the people who worry so much about the children are really worrying about themselves, about keeping their world together and getting the children to help them do it, getting the children to agree that it is indeed a world. Each new generation of children has to be told: 'This is a world, this is what one does, one lives like this.' Maybe our constant fear is that a generation of children will come along and say: 'This is not a world, this is nothing, there's no way to live at all. — Russell Hoban

Eleven years she had lived in the dark house and its gloomy garden. He was jealous of the very light and air getting to her, and they kept her close. He stopped the wide chimneys, shaded the little windows, left the strong-stemmed ivy to wander where it would over the house-front, the moss to accumulate on the untrimmed fruit trees in the red-walled garden, the weeds to over-run its green and yellow walks. He surrounded her with images of sorrow and desolation. He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in the dark. When her mind was most depressed and fullest of terrors, then, he would come out of one of the hiding-places from which he overlooked her, and present himself as her sole resource. — Charles Dickens

I love getting presents. And awards. I'd do whatever they told me to do. — Jacki Weaver

The trick to getting through life, she'd told him, is not to resent it when it isn't exactly how you think it should be. — Sarah Addison Allen

It felt like there was a dark spot in my heart. Like a bruise. And it was getting deeper and wider with every lie I told. — Wendelin Van Draanen

I spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail. The judge gave me a suspended sentence and I went to work that night - wailed just like nothing happened. What strucked me funny though - I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana, they thought marijuana was a chick. Woo boy - that really fractured me! — Louis Armstrong

They wouldn't have rescued you," he said. "They wouldn't risk bringing an outsider through Kajjil."
"Guess I just ruin everything for you, don't I? Give you headaches and keep you from getting rescued-"
"I told them no," he said, "even when I thought - when I hoped - the Eirnin would have cured me. — Cassandra Rose Clarke

I was interviewing an elder, Chief Fool's Crow, who was the ceremonial chief. He was 103 years old. I was getting his information on the history of Lakota horses. He told me the story of Hidalgo and Frank Hopkins. — John Fusco

When I spoke to a colleague about Joe's report, her face registered surprise. She said, "Is it possible for a death in a nursing home to be premature?"
Joe told me, "If it were happening in any other kind of institution, to any other part of the population - workers, say, or children - there'd be an outcry, media, inquiries, swift intervention. The truth is we do not value the last months or years of a person's life. The remaining life of someone old. Particularly if they are in residential care."
If we are all just economic units who lift or lean, then very little is "lost" when a nursing home resident or anyone getting on in their years dies prematurely. In fact money might be saved - one less nursing-home bed to fund, and the kids can finally get their hands on the house. — Karen Hitchcock

Instead of getting my gold retirement watch and landing on my feet with a white picket fence and a satellite dish, I ended up base-jumping from the kettle into the fire. All because of one last job. But what's done is done. If your interested, you can read about the whole hot mess in The Intern's Handbook. You won't find it at Barnes & Noble, but I hear the feds have a few copies lying around, and I wouldn't be surprised if you could download it for free on Russian iTunes. I'm told it's an excellent beach/airplane/bathroom/killing-time-after-a-motel-tryst read. — Shane Kuhn

One time, when we'd been discussing martial arts, Murphy told me that eventually, no-one can teach you anything more about them. Once you reach that state of knowledge, the only way to keep learning and increasing your own skill is to teach what you know to others. That's why she teaches a children's class and a rape-defence course every spring and fall at one of her neighbourhood's community centres.
It sounded kind of flaky-Zen to me at the time, but Hell's bells, she'd been right. Once upon a time, it would have taken me an hour, if not more, to attain the proper frame of mind. In the course of teaching Molly to meditate, though, I had found myself going over the basics again for the first time in years, and understanding them with a deeper and richer perspective than I'd had when I was her age. I'd been getting almost as much insight and new understanding of my knowledge from teaching Molly as she'd been learning from me. — Jim Butcher

He'd once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it. — Don DeLillo

For five years I didn't think it was possible to be this happy.
But then he forgot all those promises he made. He forgot why he loved me. He simply stopped loving me.

And this is how he did it:
He stopped talking to me unless I spoke to him.
He stopped holding my hand.
He stopped kissing me good night.
He stopped kissing me good morning.
He stopped kissing me.
He stopped smiling at me.
He stopped laughing.
He stopped bathing and showering with me.
He stopped wanting me.
He started swearing at me.
He started lying to me.
He started cheating on me.
He hurt me.
And then he told me he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce.
Oh, I forgot. He said he was sorry.

I wanted to blow his fucking brains out. — Terry McMillan

The fallout from the Supreme Court halfway killing Obamacare would likely be more serious than conservatives believe ... Even their own base, which has been told relentlessly that Obamacare represents the end of the America they love, might start to demand a fix once it becomes clear just what they're missing-& what all those blue states with their own exchanges are getting. — Kevin Drum

Charlotte Stokehurst," Violet Bridgerton announced, "is getting married."
"Today?" Hyacinth queried, taking off her gloves.
Her mother gave her a look. "She has become engaged. Her mother told me this morning."
Hyacinth looked around. "Were you waiting for me in the hall?"
"To the Earl of Renton," Violet added. "Renton."
"Have we any tea?" Hyacinth asked. "I walked all the way home, and I'm thirsty."
"Renton!" Violet exclaimed, looking about ready to throw up her hands in despair. "Did you hear me?"
"Renton," Hyacinth said obligingly. "He has fat ankles."
"He's - " Violet stopped short. "Why were you looking at his ankles? — Julia Quinn

I was always getting told off by my choir teacher for, you know, riffing when I shouldn't. — Rita Ora

You can ask Jack about
getting into Eternal Truth."
"You want Jack to go to church?" Hardy
asked blankly. "Honey, he'd be struck by
lightning as soon as he went in the front
door."
Haven grinned at him. "Compared to you,
Jack is a choirboy."
"Since he's your big brother," he told her
kindly, "I'll let you keep your illusions. — Lisa Kleypas

That wasn't so bad," I decided, after downing the shot. Maybe I was getting my rhythm.
"Because you threw it over your shoulder," Scarface told me, looking smug.
"Did not." I looked behind me, only to see an outraged vamp with fey wine dripping down his face. "Oops."
"It was for luck," Ray said defensively, wrapping both my hands around a glass.
"Drink!"
I drank. — Karen Chance

A guy from Bear Stearns had visited our class, thin and bald with a gold watch. He told us that if we were interested in getting into finance, we had better work hard and smart because a lot of machines were able to make investment decisions now, and in the future, computer programs would run everything. — Ned Vizzini

I kept getting told, 'You need to bulk up. Burgers and shakes. Burgers and shakes.' That's never been my thing. — Jack Quaid