Good Living Room Quotes & Sayings

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, my parents, like the rest of America, were terrified. The Soviets had nuclear weapons and now were ahead of us in space. So my parents marched me and Owen into our living room, sat us down, and said, " You boys are going to study math and Science so we can beat the Soviets!"
I thought that was a lot of pressure to put on a six-year old. But own and I were obedient sons, so we studied math and science. And we were good at it.. Owen was the first in our family to go to college. He went to MIT, graduating with a degree in physics, and then became a photographer.
I went to Harvard, and became a comedian. My poor parents.
But we still beat the Soviets. You're welcome. — Al Franken

When things seem to be slowing down, there's this little trick I like to play. I'd plow this virgin who's on her period, and after I'm done I'd just run out into the living room, or the dance floor, with all that bloody goop on my junk and yell, OH MY GOD, I'VE BEEN SHOT IN THE NADS! Yeah, good times. — Zach Braff

More than anything, I began to hate women writers. Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Browning, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf. Bronte, Bronte, and Bronte. I began to resent Emily, Anne, and Charlotte - my old friends - with a terrifying passion. They were not only talented; they were brave, a trait I admired more than anything but couldn't seem to possess. The world that raised these women hadn't allowed them to write, yet they had spun fiery novels in spite of all the odds. Meanwhile, I was failing with all the odds tipped in my favor. Here I was, living out Virginia Woolf's wildest feminist fantasy. I was in a room of my own. The world was no longer saying, "Write? What's the good of your writing?" but was instead saying "Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me. — Catherine Lowell

I don't think it's good when entertainment tries to proselytize and I don't think people ultimately want someone showing up in their living room and just hectoring at them all day long. But if you can create a space where people are caught up in something - whether it's a drama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, or science fiction - that's when people give over their minds and allow their emotions to flow. — John Ridley

Brady! You can't watch that!"
He looked up at me, his eyebrows furrowed, from his place on the floor. The remote was far away from him, next to the screen, so he couldn't have changed the channel. I snatched it up and hit the information button. "What the hell is a YoGabbaGabba?" I looked back over at Brady and frowned. "Uh, never mind. Go ahead."
Walking with purpose back into the kitchen, I whispered into the receiver. "Okay. No joke, there is a talking, dancing, bright red, studded dildo on the screen. There are other ones that look like him, and I swear to God one is wearing a condom on his head. That's a kids' show?" I looked back into the living room. "Whatever happened to good old-fashioned cartoons? Don't they have good shit like Animaniacs anymore? — Amber L. Johnson

The people on the QVC shopping channel convince me that life is worth living. They see the good in everything. People who go to counselling should actually go to a room with a QVC seller for half an hour and let them find the qualities within them. For example, they'd look at me and say, 'To anybody else this looks like a stomach but, actually, his feet never get wet in the rain. — Johnny Vegas

You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy's leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there's a difference, like the banker's just doing his job but the loan shark's a criminal. I like the loan shark better because he doesn't pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be where I am sitting right now. I'm not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men's club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid's grades. Die at my desk, and they'll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt's hit the coffin. — Dennis Lehane

Think of the sushi trend that started in the '80s. It was as much about the Nintendo entertainment system in your living room as it was about the availability of good-quality raw fish. The Japanese food trend rose as the world of Japanese business and culture was becoming a bigger part of American life. — David Sax

Harry said good-bye to you," he said. "Didn't you hear him?"
"It doesn't matter," Harry muttered to Mr. Weasley. "Honestly, I don't care."
Mr. Weasley did not remove his hand from Harry's shoulder.
"You aren't going to see your nephew till next summer," he said to Uncle Vernon in mild indignation. "Surely you're going to say good-bye?"
Uncle Vernon's face worked furiously. The idea of being taught consideration by a man who had just blasted away half his living room wall seemed to be causing him intense suffering. But Mr. Weasley's wand was still in his hand, and Uncle Vernon's tiny eyes darted to it once, before he said, very resentfully, "Good-bye, then. — J.K. Rowling

When compared to eternal verities, most of the questions and concerns of daily living are really rather trivial. What should we have for dinner? What color should we paint the living room? Should we sign Johnny up for soccer? These questions and countless others like them lose their significance when times of crisis arise, when loved ones are hurt or injured, when sickness enters the house of good health, when life's candle dims and darkness threatens. Our thoughts become focused, and we are easily able to determine what is really important and what is merely trivial. — Thomas S. Monson

I bought a big-ass house and haven't decorated it yet," Psycho replied defensively. "Patio furniture looks good in my living room. I don't
have a lamp. The red and green Christmas lights work just fine."
"The lights blink."
"So do I. — Kate Angell

Resurrection. In the crude form in which it is preached to console the weak, it is alien to me. I have always understood Christ's words about the living and the dead in a different sense. Where could you find room for all these hordes of people accumulated over thousands of years? The universe isn't big enough for them; God, the good, and meaningful purpose would be crowded out. They'd be crushed by these throngs greedy merely for the animal life.
But all the time, life, one, immense, identical throughout its innumerable combinations and transformations, fills the universe and is continually reborn. You are anxious about whether you will rise from the dead or not, but you rose from the dead when you were born and you didn't notice it. — Boris Pasternak

It's not that fact of him telling me he's not going to kill me that assures me I've got some time to breathe. Predo could look me in the eye and tell me whiskey's good and cigarettes are better and I'd still need a drink and a Lucky to believe he's not lying. The man breeds lies. He spawns them asexually, with no need for any assistance. He exhales and lies fill the air. Alone in a room, he mutters lies to himself to keep from falling into the trap of truth-telling. In the day, sleeping in his bed, deep in the safest heart of Coalition headquarters, he dreams in lies. The better to keep his left hand from knowing what betrayals his right has planned.
Stretched on the rack and burned with hot irons, Dexter Predo will be in no danger of revealing the truth. Living so far beyond its borders. — Charlie Huston

I just don't think it's a good idea for you to visit right now. Maybe you can come back later? I'll bake you some cookies . . ." Okay, that was it. I hadn't had a chance to use the kitchen for anything more elaborate than coffee and fried eggs, and I'd be damned if some invading monster was going to beat me to it. I stepped into the living room, bat still held in front of me like a poor man's broadsword. "You are not using my kitchen. — Seanan McGuire

I'm late," Ashley declares, bursting into the room waving a bunch of shopping bags in the air. "But it's all for good reason! I brought everything!" "It looks like you brought a whole department store!" I laugh as I follow her into the living room, where she dumps — Audra Cole

Declan, fortunately, was a forgiving guy and proved pretty accommodating as we figured things out together. He was patient as Sydney and I painstakingly read the instructions on the can of formula Lana sent. He made little complaint when I initially put his diaper on backward. When he grew tired again and started crying, I had no instructions to follow. Sydney gave a helpless shrug when I looked at her. So I just walked him around the living room, crooning classic rock songs until he dozed off and could be set down.
Rose, who'd stayed with us off and on but looked more terrified of the baby than a Strigoi, watched me with amazement. "You're kind of good at that," she remarked. "Adrian Ivashkov, baby whisperer."
I looked down at the sleeping baby. "I'm making it up as I go along. — Richelle Mead

Maybe a damned good night's sleep will bring me back to a gentle sanity.
But at the moment, I look about this room and, like myself, it's all in disarray: things fallen out of place, cluttered, jumbled, lost, knocked over and I can't put it straight, don't
want to.
Perhaps living through these petty days will get us ready for the dangerous ones. — Charles Bukowski

This is what I decided:
Chloe is gone. She is never coming back. And the way I've been acting would hurt her. For at least an hour, I switch places with her in my mind-I am dead and Chloe is alive. How would she handle it? She would cry. She would be sad. She would miss me. But she wouldn't stop living. She would let people comfort her. She would sleep in her own room and smile at the memories as she drifted to sleep. And she would probably punch Galen Forza. Which brings me to what else I decided:
Galen Forza is a jerk. The details are hazy, but I'm pretty sure he had something to do with my accident on Monday. Also, he's a bit weird. Staring habit aside, he keeps popping up everywhere. Every time he does, I handle it with the grace of a rhino on stilts. So I'm switching my schedule as soon as I get to school. There is no good reason I should humiliate myself for seven periods a day. — Anna Banks

I was three. My father in jest said that he'd tell the doctor to give me a shot if I didn't behave. Good heavens, I have a mental picture of the living room and the doctor approaching the door. I was terrified. — Ted Danson

A good friend of ours has three cats in her studio apartment and asked me, "Can you tell that I have cats?" I replied, "No, but I can tell you have a box of turds in your living room. — Jim Gaffigan

He panted over me, winded by his own absurd lecture. The stench of his alcoholic breath stung my nose. Again I didn't answer. I hoped he'd tire out and end his speech and hobble back to the living room without touching me. Such hopes were unlikely, as was the case this time.
"Answer me, you good-for-nuthin' wench!"
The pain bit instantly as his hand connected with my cheek. I shook my head in answer to his crazy questions, feeling a rise of warm tears. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I have an amazing stylist; she's called Rebecca Corbin Murray ... I go around to her living room, and it's sort of exploding with dresses, and we go through them all, and she's so good at picking things she knows I'll like, and we work together. She's taught me absolutely everything; she's brilliant. — Lily James

She gave me the big freeze when I said hello that day, though. I had a helluva time convincing her that I didn't give a good goddam where her dog relieved himself. He could do it in the living room, for all I cared. — J.D. Salinger

We arrived back at the Abbey hand in hand and in perfect amity. In the space of our short walk we had agreed upon a new career and a new style of living. We should embrace simplicity, at least a privileged and eccentric sort of simplicity. We would have rooms for consulting and photographic equipment as well as a sitting room and bedroom with further accommodation for Morag and Aquinas. A pair of guest rooms and another pair for a cook and maid would complete our domestic arrangements. That still left a few rooms unused, but I had little doubt we would eventually put them to good purpose. As to the work Brisbane proposed, I felt a thrill at the prospect of taking on such important and clandestine activities. There was much yet to be discussed, but I felt the new year had dawned full of expectant promise, and already it was being fulfilled. — Deanna Raybourn

Marissa came around the corner, looking Grace Kelly-fine as usual. With her long blond hair and her precision-molded face, she was known as the great beauty of the species, and even V, who didn't go for her type, had to show love.
"Hello, boys - " Marissa stopped and stared at Butch. "Good ... Lord ... look at those pants."
Butch winced. "Yeah, I know. They're - "
"Could you come over here?" She started backing down the hall to their bedroom. "I need you to come back here for a minute. Or ten."
Butch's bonding scent flared to a dull roar, and V knew damn well the guy's body was hardening for sex.
"Baby, you can have me for as long as you want me."
Just as the cop left the living room, he shot a look over his shoulder. "I'm so feeling these leathers. Tell Fritz I want fifty pairs of them. Stat. — J.R. Ward

Above all, however, resist the temptation to cover the entire room in foam--I can't tell you how often college studios in particular succumb to this seductive error. It is quite simply a recipe for disaster, because it hoovers up the top half of the room's reverberation, making for an extremely unnatural working environment. Although it makes good sense to damp down strong early reflections that can potentially comb filter your frequency response, you also want your monitoring environment to bear at least a passing resemblance to real-world living rooms and offices. If you plaster your whole studio in foam, you'll basically be mixing for people in padded cells--perhaps not the most lucrative demographic to set your sights on! — Mike Senior

He gave me his word. That means something to a man like Donovan Caine.
Yeah, it means you'll realize he's an exceptionally good liar when you're clutching your intestines and choking on your own blood on his living room floor. — Jennifer Estep

On the screen it rained and rained confetti, for minutes, and that glitter-rain, plus the cameras flashing and the lights from the billboards and the awesome mass of the crowds in their shiny hats and toothy smiles, made the world pop and shine and blur in a way that makes you sad to be watching it all on your TV screen, in a way that makes you feel like, instead of bringing the action into your living room, the TV cameras are just reminding you of how much you're missing, confronting you with it, you in your pajamas, on your couch, a couple of pizza crusts resting in some orange grease on a paper plate in front of you, your glass of soda mostly flat and watery, the ice all melted, and the good stuff happening miles and miles away from where you're at. — Emily M. Danforth

I was sitting on the couch in the living room, pouring through an old sci-fi novel I'd found in one of the ruins, and I could hear the water bubbling as he cooked. The spaghetti smelled good, but I knew he'd probably put something crazy in it like popcorn or marshmallows, so I ignored my rumbling belly. — Ash Gray

Peeking into the living room through the bathroom's connecting door, she called out, "You gonna be okay out there, Owen?"
He was lying on his back, long flannel-pajama-clad legs crossed at the ankle and arm up over hi head. Cover off to the side. No shirt. Jeez, his chest was broad and defined, stomach cut with ridges of muscles. He turned a lazy gaze from the fire to where she stood in the doorway.
"I'm god. Thank you, for everything."
Good, indeed. She'd never look at that couch the same way again. She hugged herself. "Okay, well, give a shout if yuo need anything, or just help yourself. G'night. — Laura Kaye

Threw my hands out to the sides. "My living room was shot up today. With me in it!" I screeched. His hands came to my jaws. "Baby, calm down." "You calm down! You can walk through walls and silently down bikers. I don't have those abilities, Hawk. I was in another situation where I needed a crowbar! That sucks! And after that, I need cookie dough. Or at the very least really good Chinese food from Twin Dragon or, better yet, Imperial." His thumbs swept my jaw and he said quietly, "All right, baby, I'll get you Imperial." I — Kristen Ashley

Imagine America as one house on a suburban lane. Years before he became a Jehovah's Witness, Prince knocked on America's door through his music. He came to the door holding a guitar and an umbrella while concealing a Bible. He flirted his way inside the door and told us he had a dirty mind and was controversial, and then he sat down in the living room on the good couch. And, when America's guard was down, because we thought we were having a conversation about sex, Prince eased out his Bible and said, "Let me also tell you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. — Toure

For the last several days I've had the sudden and general urge to buy a new book. I've stopped off at a few bookstores around the city, and while I've looked at hundreds and hundreds of books in that time, I have not found the one book that will satisfy my urge. It's not as if I don't have anything to read; there's a tower of perfectly good unread books next to my bed, not to mention the shelves of books in the living room I've been meaning to reread. I find myself, maddeningly, hungry for the next one, as yet unknown. I no longer try to analyze this hunger; I capitulated long ago to the book lust that's afflicted me most of my life. I know enough about the course of the disease to know I'll discover something soon. — Lewis Buzbee

Elliot - Elliot waved absently, making a decision right then and there. He'd take the trip that Patrick offered. A cruise down Europe's most famous rivers couldn't be any more disruptive than home, after all.
Alice -I stood up shaking the laptop at nothing. "He made me think we were going to get married at the end of this trip! He had me look up the laws for Americans getting married in Budapest!"
"Ball-hanging is too good for him. He serves something worse. Off with his head!"
"I will take that trip!" I yelled at the small living room filled with boxes that I had yet to unpack. "And I will enjoy myself! A lot! — Katie MacAlister

The hippocampus is the structure where memory is supposedly controlled. It is the most plastic part of the brain; it is also the part that is assumed to absorb all the damage from repeated insults like the chronic stress we experience daily from small doses of negative feelings - as opposed to the invigorating "good stress" of the tiger popping up occasionally in your living room. You can rationalize all you want; the hippocampus takes the insult of chronic stress seriously, incurring irreversible atrophy. Contrary to popular belief, these small, seemingly harmless stressors do not strengthen you; they can amputate part of your self. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Lena scowled at the empty space in her living room. "Oh sure, thanks, I had fun too." She'd stayed awake, spilled a cup of perfectly good tea, and for what? A spirit with the noncorporeal equivalent of erectile dysfunction. Mostly she was fine being permanently on-call in the Veil. On nights like this, however, it sucked. — Laura Oliva

I like your coat," she announced, as if her approval of my dress were the supreme prize in a good-taste contest.
"Does that mean I get to see Jill?"
She considered this. "Perhaps it does," she said.
"Just what are your intentions concerning my roommate?"
"I'm going to kidnap her and hold her for ransom."
"Really?" she said, appearing delighted. "How splendid."
"Or else I'll put her in a cage and show her for money, but I think you'd be more suitable for that role."
She nodded. "Yes. The kidnapping is a much better idea." She stood straight and walked with exaggerated grace into the living room. There was a very nice wooden stairway, curving back on itself with a stained-glass window at the landing. She called, "Jill! Your kidnapper is here," and gave me a big smile.
"Aren't you going to come in?" she said.
"Only if you want me to. We kidnappers are very polite."
"Oh do, by all means. — Steven Brust

Because fulfillment is an illusion, the wise must devote themselves to avoiding pain rather than seeking pleasure, living quietly, as Schopenhauer counseled, 'in a small fireproof room' - advice that now struck Nietzsche as both timid and untrue, a perverse attempt to dwell, as he was to put it pejoratively several years later, 'hidden in forests like shy deer.' Fulfillment was to be reached not by avoiding pain, but by recognizing its role as a natural, inevitable step on the way to reaching anything good. — Alain De Botton

We stayed all day long. We closed our eyes and paryed, which we had not doen together in a long time. The nurse came in and out of the room. Everything felt awful and I wondered why the whole world didn't seem to notice how bad things really were. I thought of how I'd gotten used to awful, how after my dad died the planets kept on spinning and I got up and ate breakfast every morning and kept going to school. Something happens and it's terrible and you think you can't live another day, but then your mother gets used to it and you get used to it and you both keep on living, and you're not sure if that getting-used-to-things is good or the way life should be. — Margaret McMullan

I took a fortifying breath, stood, and made my way out to the living room. Clay waited for me by the kitchenette. He had a glass of orange juice ready for me. He knew me well. I smiled my thanks and gulped it down. It felt good and gave me a tiny energy boost. "I — Melissa Haag

Some mornings, she'd wake and vow, Today, I will get it right. I won't be such an awful mess of a girl. I won't lose my temper or make unkind remarks. I won't go too far with a joke and feel the room go quiet with disapproval. I'll be good and kind and sensible and patient. The sort everyone loves. But by evening, her good intentions would have unraveled. She'd say the wrong thing or talk a little too loudly. She'd take a dare she shouldn't, just to be noticed. Perhaps Mabel was right, and she was selfish. But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all? "Oh, Evie, you're too much," people said, and it wasn't complimentary. Yes, she was too much. She felt like too much inside all the time. So why wasn't she ever enough? — Libba Bray

One morning indeed, I felt a sudden misgiving that she not only had left the house but had gone for good: I had just heard the sound of a door which seemed to me to be that of her room. On tiptoe I crept towards the room, opened the door, stood upon the threshold. In the dim light the bedclothes bulged in a semi-circle, that must be Albertine who, with her body bent, was sleeping with her feet and face to the wall. Only, overflowing the bed, the hair upon that head, abundant and dark, made me realise that it was she, that she had not opened her door, had not stirred, and I felt that this motionless and living semi-circle, in which a whole human life was contained and which was the only thing to which I attached any value, I felt that it was there, in my despotic possession. — Marcel Proust

As for myself, I'd rather not say very much. When I breathe, the air feels good in my chest. And when I think of the mirrored room, as of course I still do, I understand now that it's empty, filled with chimeras like Charlotte Swenson - the hard, beautiful seashells left behind long after the living creatures within have struggled free and swum away. Or died. Life can't be sustained under the pressure of so many eyes. Even as we try to reveal the mystery of ourselves, to catch it unawares, expose its pulse and flinch and peristalsis, the truth has slipped away, burrowed further inside a dark, coiled privacy that replenishes itself like blood. It cannot be seen, much as one might wish to show it. It dies the instant it is touched by light. — Jennifer Egan

If I do a piece in my living room, if I practice it - and I have the tapes to prove this - it's not going to be as good as doing the same piece in front of an audience. — Dave Van Ronk

While all the universe and my family are still sleeping, I will walk among the red and blue twinkle-lights of the living room, to sit and gaze upon the pretty white angel atop the tree and say silent prayers, remembering what was good in the world and why I was brought here to remember. — Carew Papritz

It's not as if I don't have anything to read; there's a tower of perfectly good unread books next to my bed, not to mention the shelves of books in the living room I've been meaning to reread. I find myself, maddeningly, hungry for the next one, as yet unknown. I no longer try to analyze this hunger; I capitulated long ago to the book lust that's afflicted me most of my life. — Lewis Buzbee

Sounds great. Let me grab a quick shower." "Good idea. I'll wash your back," he said, following me into the living room. "Why don't you keep Lizzy company?" "Why don't I keep you company?" His voice dropped in volume. "I could clean that special place for you with my tongue. Promise I'll do a good job. — Kylie Scott

When I was growing up, there was a feeling in one's living room as much as in one's local gallery that a little elitism was good for the soul. — Andrew O'Hagan

Oh, hang it all! what's the good - I mean, the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day, same old game, same up and down to town, until you forget there is any other game. You ought to see once in a way what's going on outside, if it's only nothing particular after all. — E. M. Forster

The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that's why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world. — Michelle Alexander

I'm willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else's living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another's brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves. — John Updike

Light is good company, when alone; I took my comfort where I found it, and the warmest yellow bulb in the living-room lamp had become a kind of radiant babysitter all its own. — Aimee Bender