Great Day Off Quotes & Sayings

You may remember that the Lord God appeared to His people at Mount Sinai. That encounter was His great theo-phany, His foundational appearance to the children of Israel. Yet it happened in a strange way. His glory, His visible gracious presence, was veiled in a cloud that was dark by day and bright at night. He concealed Himself in that deep dark cloud so that He could reveal Himself safely while speaking. So, from a human point of view, the closer they came to Him, the deeper they came into the darkness. Thus in Exodus 20:21 we read that "the people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was." The — John W. Kleinig

The kidney was removed with great skill. We have an image of the kidney taken from that broadcast. Viewers are advised that the following image is quite graphic, and-"
"I am getting so sick of looking at this kidney," I said.
"It's a farce," Jazza replied. "They act like they're shocked and horrified, and then they show it off twenty times a day."
"Have you seen the singing kidney video?" I asked.
"Ugh. No."
"It's really funny. You should watch it. — Maureen Johnson

We can't tweak the genes of the food we eat without suspicion," Erskine added. "We can pick and choose the naturally mutated ones until a blade of grass is a great ear of corn, but we can't do it with purpose. Vic had dozens of examples like these. He rattled them off in the cafeteria that day." Erskine ticked his fingers as he counted. "Vaccines versus natural immunities, cloning versus twins, modified foods. Or course he was perfectly right. The bastard always was. It was the manmade part that would have caused the chaos. It would be knowing that people were out to get us, that there was danger in the air we breathed. — Hugh Howey

Being an author is fun. It's a great job, because I can stay up as late as I want, and if I feel like taking the day off, I do it. Plus, I get to make up silly stories and draw pictures all day. — Dav Pilkey

Thus one can see in the Negro church to-day, reproduced in microcosm, all the great world from which the Negro is cut off by color-prejudice and social condition. — W.E.B. Du Bois

October is the cruelest month of any election year, but by then, the pain is so great that even the strong are like jelly and time has lost all meaning for anybody still involved in a political campaign. By that time, even candidates running unopposed have abandoned all hope of victory and live only for the day when they will finally be free to seek vengeance on all those treacherous bastards who once passed themselves off as loyal friends and allies and swore they were only in it because they all shared the same hopes and dreams ... — Hunter S. Thompson

It feels great to wake up feeling healthy, awake and alert. I love waking up in the morning, taking a
deep breath, reading the newspaper and going to the gym - as opposed to carrying a hangover right
until lunch. That's horrible. It is nice to let off steam once in a while, but I find myself less involved with
people in that sense. I like staying at home, reading a book, having a chat with my wife, a quiet dinner
and going to bed early. I don't want to drink half a bottle of whisky and look 50 the next day. I have
become an anti-drinking, anti-smoking agent. — Saif Ali Khan

I envy Johnny and at the same time I get sore as hell watching him destroy himself, misusing his gifts, and the stupid accumulation of nonsense the pressure of his life requires. I think that if Johnny could straighten out his life, not even sacrificing heroin, if he could pilot that plane better, maybe he'd end up worse, maybe go crazy altogether, or die, but not without having played it to the depth, what he's looking for in those sad a posteriori monlogues, in his retelling of great, fascinating experiences which, however, stop right there, in the middle of the road. And all this I back up with my own cowardice, and maybe basically I want Johnny to wind up all at once like a nova that explodes into a thousand pieces and turns astronomers into idiots for a whole week, and then one can go off to sleep and tomorrow is another day. — Julio Cortazar

On the contrary, he would come home and rail at both parties with great wrath - and plainly proved one day to the satisfaction of my wife, and three old ladies who were drinking tea with her, that the two parties were like two rogues, each tugging at the skirt of the nation; and that in the end they would tear the very coat off its back, and expose its nakedness. — Washington Irving

You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So ... get on your way! — Dr. Seuss

For the anarch, little has changed; flags have meaning for him, but not sense. I have seen them in the air and on the ground like leaves in May and November; and I have done so as a contemporary and not just as a historian. The May Day celebration will survive, but with a different meaning. New portraits will head up the processions. A date devoted to the Great Mother is re-profaned. A pair of lovers in the wood pays more homage to it. I mean the forest as something undivided, where every tree is still a liberty tree.
For the anarch, little is changed when he strips off a uniform that he wore partly as fool's motley, partly as camouflage. It covers his spiritual freedom, which he will objectivate during such transitions. This distinguishes him from the anarchist, who, objectively unfree, starts raging until he is thrust into a more rigorous straitjacket. — Ernst Junger

As someone who makes his living as an actor, my routine varies almost every day. There are weeks I'm working and weeks I'm not. People think it must be great to have all that time off, but you'd be surprised how quickly that grass would become greener. The idle brain is the devil's playground. — Eric Lange

[Julie] had lived a great deal among lies, before plumping for a small life of her own, a sincere and restricted life from which all pretense, even in matters sensual, was banished. How many crazy decisions and allegiances to successive aspects fo the truth! Had she not, one day when her costume for a fancy dress had demanded short hair, cut off the great chestnut mane that fell below her waist when she let it down? 'I could have hired a wig,' she thought. 'I might also, at a pinch, have passed the rest of my life with Becker or Espivant. If it comes to that, I could also have gone on stirring puddings in a saucepan at Carneilhan. The things "one might have done" are, in fact, the things one could not do ... — Colette

Every day I watched how a bare metal frame, rolling down the line would come off the other end, a spanking brand new car. What a great idea! Maybe, I could do the same thing with my music. Create a place where a kid off the street could walk in one door, an unknown, go through a process, and come out another door, a star. — Berry Gordy

You never know what a day will bring.

Today brought a note that my great grandson wants me to come for a visit. I am going just as soon as the snow is off the mountains. — Marie F. Martin

THE OPENING OF EYES After R. S. Thomas That day I saw beneath dark clouds, the passing light over the water and I heard the voice of the world speak out, I knew then, as I had before, life is no passing memory of what has been nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting to be read. It is the opening of eyes long closed. It is the vision of far off things seen for the silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secret conversing, speaking out loud in the clear air. It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees before the lit bush. It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished, opened at last, fallen in love with solid ground. — David Whyte

Waking up was sheer delight for him: he always showed a naive and simple amazement at the discovery that he was back on earth; he was sincerely pleased. She, on the other hand, awoke with great reluctance, with a desire to stave off the day by keeping her eyes closed. — Milan Kundera

In my late thirties the dream of disappointment and exhaustion had been the dream of the exploding head: the dream of a noise in my head so loud and long that I felt with the brain that survived that the brain could not survive; that this was death. Now, in my early fifties, after my illness, after I had left the manor cottage and put an end to that section of my life, I began to be awakened by thoughts of death, the end of things; and sometimes not even by thoughts so specific, not even by fear rational or fantastic, but by a great melancholy. This melancholy penetrated my mind while I slept; and then, when I awakened in response to its prompting, I was so poisoned by it, made so much not a doer (as men must be, every day of their lives), that it took the best part of the day to shake it off. And that wasted or dark day added to the gloom preparing for the night. — V.S. Naipaul

It has long been my belief that in times of great stress, such as a 4-day vacation, the thin veneer of family wears off almost at once, and we are revealed in our true personalities. — Shirley Jackson

Restoring order of my personal universe suddenly seemed imperative, as I refolded my T-shirts, stuffed the toes of my shoes with tissue paper, and arranged all the bills in my secret stash box facing the same way, instead of tossed in sloppy and wild, as if by my evil twin. All week, I kept making lists and crossing things off them, ending each day with a sense of great accomplishment eclipsed only by complete and total exhaustion. — Sarah Dessen

When Liesel left that day, she said something with great uneasiness. In translation, two giant words were struggled with, carried on her shoulder, and dropped as a bungling pair at Ilsa Hermann's feet. They fell off sideways as the girl veered with them and could no longer sustain their weight. Together, they sat on the floor, large and loud and clumsy. Two giant words ... I'm sorry. — Markus Zusak

Joao Elvas wrapped his cloak tightly around him, tucked up his legs as if he were still in his mother's womb, and snoozed in the warmth of the hay, which gave off a pleasant odour generated by the heat of his body. There are refined men and women, and sometimes not all that refined, who cannot bear such odours and who take great pains to cover any traces of their natural smell, and the day will come when artificial roses will be sprayed with the artificial scent of roses, and these refined souls will exclaim, How lovely they smell. — Jose Saramago

I'm in a great place because I trust people behind the camera as I go off, and I still go back to my day job and do film. — Lee Daniels

It's not a matter of temptation!" Hirou said. "It's ... " he trailed off for a moment. It wasn't that he couldn't find the words. It was that the concepts didn't exist in this world. What he wanted to say was that he had a pretty good idea what sort of behavior got you listed as a villain, in the great TV Tropes wiki of the universe; and he'd had a worried eye on his own character sheet since the day he'd realized what he'd gotten himself into; and he absolutely positively wasn't going to go Dark Messiah, Knight Templar, Well Intentioned Extremist, or for that matter Lawful Stupid. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Celebrities are our heroes and heroines now, discussed the next day over latte or lunch. We have such a strong need to talk to each other, to have some commonality of story, that we're finding it in celebrities. In effect, we're turning reality into fiction. Using actors and actresses, just off duty. And how is this working for us? Not great. It leaves us with a perennially empty feeling. We find the celebrities empty, and at some level, we find ourselves empty for paying them so much attention. We've become reluctant voyeurs, and at some level, we know they're just people trying to live their lives. Our culture begins to lack content, depth, and substance. We miss the richness of human experience that story embodies, reflects, and carries forward. We might have to go back to reading books. Yay! — Lisa Scottoline

I am in the night of the stars.

The moon is new and I see my way by focusing on the light given off by the Souls of the trees. The night air is thick and dark and sweet, like blueberries. It enters my nose and throat and ears to fill me up with its night magic.

My ancestors are with me. They are in me. I can hear them. I felt them all day. My great grandmother, Lily Rose, came first. They will guide me with voices that flicker like lightening bugs, orange, hot, liquid glow in the moment. — Sophia Rose

Understand: people judge you by appearances, the image you project through your
actions, words, and style. If you do not take control of this process, then people will see
and define you the way they want to, often to your detriment. You might think that
being consistent with this image will make others respect and trust you, but in fact it is
the opposite - over time you seem predictable and weak. Consistency is an illusion
anyway - each passing day brings changes within you. You must not be afraid to
express these evolutions. The powerful learn early in life that they have the freedom to
mold their image, fitting the needs and moods of the moment. In this way, they keep
others off balance and maintain an air of mystery. You must follow this path and find
great pleasure in reinventing yourself, as if you were the author writing your own
drama — 50 Cent

Oh, I've discarded a great many [poems]. And occasionally I've discarded and then resurrected. I would find a crumpled yellow ball of paper in the wastebasket, in the morning, and open it to see what the hell I'd been up to; and occasionally it was something that needed only a very slight change to be brought off, which I'd missed the day before. — Conrad Aiken

I'm never bored, never ever bored. If I've got a day off I'll sit in a cafe and watch and observe. I'm a great observer. — David Suchet

They are all very serious people with stern expressions on their faces. They discuss nothing but important matters and like to philosophize a great deal, while at the same time everyone can see that the workers are detestably fed, sleep without suitable bedding, thirty to forty in a room with bedbugs everywhere, the stench, the dampness, and the moral corruption ... Obviously all our fine talk has gone on simply to hoodwink ourselves and other people as well. Show me the day nurseries that they're talking about so much about. And where are the libraries? Why, they just write about nurseries and libraries in novels, while in fact not a single one even exists. What does exist is nothing but dirt, vulgarity, and a barbarian way of life ... I dislike these terribly serious faces, they frighten me, and I'm afraid of serious conversations, too. We'd be better off if we all would just shut up for a while! — Anton Chekhov

It's great to be anywhere as a writer. It saves you from implication in the ugliness of the place and justifies your being there. You can spend all day jerking off as long as you describe it well. — Richard Hell

You know, I go to work in a great office every day, and the amount of freedom that goes with being a pro golfer on the tour is awesome. So I get to enjoy my weeks off away from the course, and then I get to go to work on some of the best golf courses in the world out here. — Adam Derek Scott

You have to understand, I don't play golf for fun. It's my business. When the mailman starts delivering mail on his off day, that's when I'll start playing golf for the hell of it. I like to play in tournaments. There are many great courses around the world that I have never played that are next door to tournaments. I have not played them because I don't play for fun. — Lee Trevino

In matters of great concern, and which must be done, there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution; to be undetermined where the case is so plain, and the necessity so urgent. To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating, and drinking, and sleeping, from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed. — John Tillotson

I'd like to give every young teacher some good news. Teaching is a very easy job. Administrators will tell you what to do. You'll be given books and told chapters to assign the children. Veteran teachers will show you the correct way to fill out forms and have your classes line up.
And here's some more good news. If you do all of these things badly, they let you keep doing it. You can go home at three o'clock every day. You get about three months off a year. Teaching is a great gig.
However, if you care about what you're doing, it's one of the toughest jobs around. — Rafe Esquith

An elephant fell off a cliff, a copper cliff, which practically broke my heart. Elephants and gravity, not a great mix. But you know what? The other elephants immediately stopped and went down and found what was left of it and stood around it in a ring. I couldn't see what they did, but when they were done - it took a day - the one that fell was all back together and up and running again. They resurrected him, I've never seen anything like it. Elephants, they know some shit. I don't know why we rule them, they should rule us. — Lev Grossman

I suggest people simply start off meditation by practicing twice a day for 5 - 10 minutes, and explore what it's like to meditate. The stress reduction and mental peace starts to become a highly desirable state. After all, it's great to let go of the worries of life! — Tim McCarthy

Belgarath and Garion effortlessly hurdled over the driftwood and loped off into the fog. "It's going to be a wet day," Garion noted soundlessly as he ran alongside the great silver wolf.
"Your fur won't melt."
"I know, but my paws get cold when they're wet."
"I'll have Durnik make you some little booties."
"That would be absolutely ridiculous, Grandfather," Garion said indignantly. — David Eddings

IN GREAT FAMILIES, WHEN an advantageous place cannot be obtained, either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentleman of that class. The more the case presented itself to the board, in this point of view, the more manifold the advantages of the step appeared; so, — Charles Dickens

Longing on a large scale is what makes history. This is just a kid with a
local yearning but he is part of an assembling crowd, anonymous
thousands off the buses and trains, people in narrow columns tramping over
the swing bridge above the river, and even if they are not a migration or a
revolution, some vast shaking of the soul, they bring with them the body
heat of a great city and their own small reveries and desperations, the
unseen something that haunts the day - men in fedoras and sailors on
shore leave, the stray tumble of their thoughts, going to a game. — Don DeLillo

Mr. Wilson, writing long before he became President, also knew how it came about that this Constitution, which the rich men of the eighteenth century created for the benefit of themselves and their class, was eventually palmed off as a great instrument for popular rule. Concerted, energetic means were taken by the rich men of the day to change public opinion, which, from the beginning, had been hostile to the Constitution. As the result of such efforts, said Mr. Wilson, 1 criticism of the Constitution " soon gave place to an undiscriminating and almost blind worship of its principles — Anonymous

What do you say to taking up our game where we left off? I was winning, you will recall.'
Winning, for all love: how your ageing memory does betray you, my poor friend,' said Stephen, fetching his 'cello. They tuned, and at no great distance Killick said to his mate, 'There they are, at it again. Squeak, squeak; boom, boom. And when they do start a-playing, it's no better. You can't tell t'other from one. Never nothing a man could sing to, even as drunk as Davy's sow.'
I remember them in the Lively: but it is not as chronic as a wardroom full of gents with German flutes, bellyaching night and day, like we had in Thunderer. No. Live and let live, I say.'
Fuck you, William Grimshaw. — Patrick O'Brian

Great touch is often written off simply as 'talent,' which is crucial, because a good swing can take a golfer only so far. I've seen thousands of fantastic swings in my day, but that doesn't guarantee anything. — Arnold Palmer

I have come to accept myself for what I am: human. I am not perfect. I am not immune to fate, but I am not automatically doomed for being alive. I feel temptations every second of every day and I am not controlled by them. I do what I want anyway, so who is to say I want anything else? When I want, I let these peculiarities run across me like dogs to their masters. When I do not, I keep them at bay with my will and my testimony. I do not cut myself off from what makes me feel; I just refuse to feel anything that cuts me off from what matters most. It is called will power. With a little practice, you can accomplish great things. — Corey Taylor

Little every-day courtesies are called the small change of life; but we should be badly off in trade if we had no small change, and must always deal with twenty-dollar bills; while the small change mounts up to the great sum in a lifetime. — Julia McNair Wright

I'm the best promoter in the world because I haven't taken a day off work since I left the penitentiary, and because I have read all the great philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinine. — Don King

It's a fun day, a day which kicks off the start of our tour, it's got great tradition - Australian cricketers just love tradition - and it's been a really pleasant day. — Matthew Hayden

Lady and gentleman, when my parents left Korea with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the considerable wealth they had amassed in the shipping business, they had a dream. They had a dream that one day amid the snowy hilltops of western North Carolina, their son would lose his virginity to a cheerleader in the woman's bathroom of a Waffle House just off the interstate. My parents have sacrificed so much for this dream! And that is why we must journey on, despite all trials and tribulations! Not for me and least of all for the poor cheerleader in question, but for my parents and indeed for all immigrants who came to his great nation in what they themselves could never have: CHEERLEADER SEX. — John Green

One day or another, it is true, dust, supposing it persists, will probably begin to gain the upper hand over domestics, invading the immense ruins of abandoned buildings, deserted dockyards; and, at that distant epoch, nothing will remain to ward off night-terrors, for lack of which we have become such great book-keepers... — Georges Bataille

That the crowning miracle of all the miracles summed up in the New Testament, after the miracle of the blind seeing, and the lame walking, and the restoration of the dead to life, was the miracle that the poor had the Gospel preached to them. That while the poor were unnaturally and unnecessarily cut off by the thousand, in the prematurity of their age, or in the rottenness of their youth - for of flower or blossom such youth has none - the Gospel was NOT preached to them, saving in hollow and unmeaning voices. That of all wrongs, this was the first mighty wrong the Pestilence warned us to set right. And that no Post- Office Order to any amount, given to a Begging-Letter Writer for the quieting of an uneasy breast, would be presentable on the Last Great Day as anything towards it. — Charles Dickens

The information age has off-loaded a great deal of the work previously done by people we could call information specialists onto all of the rest of us. We are doing the jobs of ten different people while still trying to keep up with our lives, our children and parents, our friends, our careers, our hobbies, and our favorite TV shows. It's no wonder that sometimes one memory gets confounded with another, leading us to show up in the right place but on the wrong day, or to forget something as simple as where we last put our glasses or the remote. — Daniel J. Levitin

I thought I could write. So it was my intention to start off as a writer. But I wasn't really great at delivering the word at the end of the day. — Lee Daniels

No, I don't do drugs anymore, either. But I'll tell you something about drugs. I used to do drugs, but I'll tell you something honestly about drugs, honestly, and I know it's not a very popular idea, you don't hear it very often anymore, but it is the truth: I had a great time doing drugs. Sorry. Never murdered anyone, never robbed anyone, never raped anyone, never beat anyone, never lost a job, a car, a house, a wife or kids, laughed my ass off, and went about my day. — Bill Hicks

I used to cheerlead in high school, and I had the biggest crush on one of my teammates' brothers. I was a great tumbler, so when he showed up at practice one day, I tried to impress him, but I ended up landing on my face! When I got off the ground, I had rug burn on my nose. I was in tears because it hurt so bad! — Josie Loren

And while English workmen are often unemployed and in great want, Indian women weave cotton by machinery, for the Far East at wages of six-pence a day. In short, the intelligent manufacturers are fully aware that the day is not far off when they will not know what to do with the "factory hands" who formerly wove cotton-cloth for export from England. — Pyotr Kropotkin

Turned and ran down another. They remembered the corridors that held no cheese and quickly went into new areas. Sniff would smell out the general direction of the cheese, using his great nose, and Scurry would race ahead. They got lost, as you might expect, went off in the wrong direction and often bumped into walls. But after a while, they found their way. Like the mice, the two Littlepeople, Hem and Haw, also used their ability to think and learn from their past experiences. However, they relied on their complex brains to develop more sophisticated methods of finding Cheese. Sometimes they did well, but at other times their powerful human beliefs and emotions took over and clouded the way they looked at things. It made life in the Maze more complicated and challenging. Nonetheless, Sniff, Scurry, Hem and Haw all discovered, in their own way, what they were looking for. They each found their own kind of cheese one day at the end of one of the corridors in Cheese Station — Spencer Johnson

You are always looking for a different kind of read and a different kind of intention when you are by yourself in the booth. Occasionally you are playing off of people, but it is a bit of a different muscle that you have to flex. At the end of the day though, it really is all just great fun and play that we are lucky enough to get paid for. — David Koechner

When a crime writer thinks up a delicious twist, it is a great moment. Time to relax and take the rest of the day off. I do think that it can be overdone, however. — Mark Billingham

It's good to be young and full of dreams. Dreams of one day doing something 'insanely great.' Dreams of love, beauty, achievement, and contribution. But understand they have a life of their own, and they're not very good at following instructions. Love them, revere them, nurture them, respect them, but don't ever become a slave to them. Otherwise you'll kill them off prematurely, before they get the chance to come true. — Hugh MacLeod

I think Badfinger was the epitome of that type of music before the power pop term was coined. 'No Matter What is always gonna be a great song on the radio. There?s probably two or three others off their records that are as cool like 'Day After Day'. — Robin Zander

My wife, Barbara, is great. She arranges when I do work that I have a day off between performances. — Don Rickles

Literature is the great garden that is always there and is open to everyone 24 hours a day. Who tends it? The old tour guides and sylviculturists, the wardens, the fuming parkies in their sweat-soaked serge: these have died off. If you do see an official, a professional, these days, then he's likely to be a scowl in a labcoat, come to flatten a forest or decapitate a peak. The public wanders, with its oohs and ahs, its groans and jeers, its million opinions. The wanderers feed the animals, they walk on the grass, they step in the flowerbeds. But the garden never suffers. It is, of course, Eden; it is unfallen and needs no care. — Martin Amis

Most parents send their children off to school with little bromides like "Have a great day! I can't wait to see you later!" or "Do your best at school today. We're having your favorite pizza for dinner tonight!" My mother would send me off with "Enjoy yourself. We could all be dead tomorrow. — Melissa Rivers

I think daycare is great for people who have to work two jobs. My problem is with people who are dropping kids off at daycare because they want to go out and spend the day golfing or getting their nails done. You know what I mean? That's not why they invented daycare. — Denis Leary

The day after high school, I was off to basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Station. You gotta understand, we didn't care about sports. We wanted to win the war. We wanted to win the war! And at the time, we didn't know if we would. — Bud Grant

Levedev: It's no great thing to drink - a horse too can drink ... No, one must drink intelligently ... in our time we used to struggle with lectures all day, but as soon as evening came we went straight off somewhere where the lights were shining and spun like tops til dawn ... We would talk nonsense and philosophy till our tongues went numb ... But today's lot ... I don't understand ... They wouldn't make God a candle or the Devil a poker. — Anton Chekhov

The road to Epidaurus is like the road to creation. One stops searching. One grows silent, stilled by the hush of mysterious beginnings. If one could speak one would become melodious. There is nothing to be seized or reassured or cornered off here: there is only a breaking down of the walls which lock the spirit in. The landscape does not recede, it installs itself in the open places of the heart j it crowds in, accumulates, dispossesses. You are no longer riding through something - call it Nature, if you will - but participating in a rout, a rout of the forces of greed, malevolence, envy, selfishness, spite, intolerance, pride, arrogance, cunning, duplicity and so on.
It is the morning of the first day of the great peace, the peace of the heart, which comes with surrender, I never knew the meaning of peace until I arrived at Epidaurus. Like everybody I had used the word all my life, without once realizing that I was using a counterfeit. — Henry Miller

Swirling furiously among the stairs and corridors of her exquisite home like a small and angry white bat Sybilla, Dowager Lady Culter, was not above spitting at her unfortunate son when he chose to sit down in his own great hall to take his boots off. 'If Madge Mumblecrust comes down those stairs once again for a morsel of fowl's liver with ginger, or pressed meats with almond-milk, I shall retire to a little wicker house in the forest and cast spells which will sink Venice into the sea for ever, and Madame Donati with it. The Church,' said Sybilla definitely, 'should excommunicate girls who do not replace lids on sticky jars and wash their hair every day with the best towels. — Dorothy Dunnett

But the war proponents tried desperately to continue the glorification of war by praising anyone who had been sent off to war or even just put on a uniform. Troops and veterans were placed on pedestals as great heroes - warriors who had saved us from some imagined modern-day Hitler. — Ron Paul

If you have a great day at work and you've been hit with all these great ideas and there's a lot of excitement on your team, your mind doesn't turn off. For years I've kept a pad of paper and pen by me at night, because things just occur to you. — Anne Sweeney

You have come nearer to mastering a good many aspects of cooking than anyone except a handful of great chefs, and some day it will pay off. I know it will. You will just have to go on working, and teaching, and getting around, and spreading the gospel until it does. (Avis DeVoto to Julia Child) — Joan Reardon

Theodore Finch, April 3. Today is your day. You're off to Great Places! You're off and away! — Jennifer Niven

A great, spreading beech tree sheltered the entire backyard. Its beautiful, perfectly symmetrical canopy stretched from one fence line to the other, so dense that it tinted even the hottest summer day a lush green. Only the heaviest rain could penetrate the leaves. Blue had a satchelful of memories of standing by the massive, smooth trunk in the rain, hearing it hiss and tap and scatter across the canopy without ever reaching the ground. Standing under the beech tree, it felt like she was the beech, like the rain rolled off her leaves and off the bark, smooth as skin against her own. With — Maggie Stiefvater

The phrase "going to sleep" has always given me great anxiety. I don't like doing things I'm bad at, and I have been told since I was very young that I am a bad sleeper. As soon as I become prone, my head will begin to unpack. My mind will turn on and start to hum, which is the opposite of what you need when you begin to switch off. It is as if I were waiting the whole day for this moment. Trying to go to sleep is often when I feel most engaged and alive. My brain starts to trick me into thinking this is the moment it should turn on and start working overtime. It is a problem. I need some rest. I have a lot to do. — Amy Poehler

Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit. "Where do you come from?" asked the frog in the well. "From the great ocean," he replied. "How big is your ocean?" "It's gigantic." "You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?" "Bigger." "Bigger? You mean half as big?" "No, even bigger." "Is it ... as big as this well?" "There's no comparison." "That's impossible! I've got to see this for myself." They set off together. When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces. — Sogyal Rinpoche

It's a risk-reward thing. If I do go out and try and play and get hurt again, then I'm definitely out. I've got no chance to go. If I'm ready, then great. It's getting better. I've been doing a lot more in the last couple of days. I've got a day off (on Wednesday) and then hope to come back in on Thursday and really see where I am at and test it out. Hopefully I'm going to play this weekend but, in reality, we'll see. — Steve Ralston

One thing I can say right off the bat is that creating great editorial is a huge challenge, and you can't help but go through the process and not appreciate how valuable this skill is, and how much I admire the people who do this every day. — Michael Wolf

One day we had one of those freak storms when the sky turned blue-black and the lightning fretted a silver filigree across it. And then had come the rain - great, fat, heavy drops, as warm as blood. When the storm had passed, the sky had been washed to the clear blue of a hedge-sparrow's egg and the damp earth sent out wonderfully rich, almost gastronomic smells as of fruit-cake or plum pudding; and the olive trunks steamed as the rain was dried off them by the sun, each trunk looking as though it were on fire. — Gerald Durrell

In my own country I am in a far off land.
I am strong but have no power.
I win all yet remain a loser.
At break of day I say goodnight.
When I lie down I have great fear of falling. — Francois Villon