Hands Not Working Quotes & Sayings

A serious life, by definition, is a life one reflects on, a life one tries to make sense of and bear witness to. Truth in a memoir is achieved not through a recital of actual events; it is achieved when the reader comes to believe that the writer is working hard to engage with the experience at hand. What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened. — Vivian Gornick

Though, like Everhard, they did not dream of the nature of it, there were men, even before his time, who caught glimpses of the shadow. John C. Calhoun said: "A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks." And that great humanist, Abraham Lincoln, said, just before his assassination: "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country ... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. — Jack London

I dedicate my work today to the furtherance of all things good. Whether I am paid or not, whether I am working out in the world or planting my own garden, I dedicate whatever I am doing today to the uplifting of all things. May the activity of my mind and work of my hands be of service to the healing of the world. Today I remember that there is only one work: to be who I am capable of being, to do what I am capable of doing to make the world a better place. May my life be of use to something greater than myself, that I might feel the joy of being used. Dear God, Today I dedicate all I am and all that I have, That love might use me as a conduit of its power. Illumine my mind and increase my understanding, Hone my personality and deepen my skills, That all I do might glorify Your presence in the world. And so it is. Amen. — Marianne Williamson

I have a sewing machine that I adore, and I spend a lot of time sitting in front of it when I'm not working. And any excuse to paint or draw or do something artistic with my hands really gets me going. Definitely aspiring. — India De Beaufort

Trust thyself: [156] every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos [157] and the Dark. What — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A solemn sadness reigns. A great peace is around us. In its light our cares of the working day grow small and trivial, and bread and cheese - ay, and even kisses - do not seem the only things worth striving for. Thoughts we cannot speak but only listen to flood in upon us, and standing in the stillness under earth's darkening dome, we feel that we are greater than our petty lives. Hung round with those dusky curtains, the world is no longer a mere dingy workshop, but a stately temple wherein man may worship, and where at times in the dimness his groping hands touch God's. — Jerome K. Jerome

Davenport stood in the middle of it with her arms out from her sides, her fingers spread as the creek churned around her. She was crying now, long sobs that made her whole body shake.
I had always thought the world was good, that everyone could find the beauty in themselves. Everyone could honor, and forgive, and live a full and gorgeous life, even when the hands they'd been dealt weren't easy.
But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was.
Her power was tremendous, working through her, but it had gone to rot, and without someone to help her and to love her, she did not know how to take it back.
"Yes," I said to the fiend, water spilling out of my mouth. "Yes - whatever she needs. Give her whatever she needs. — Brenna Yovanoff

It seemed to Bosch to be a form of torture heaped upon torture. Corazon was hunched over the steel table, her bloody and gloved hands deep inside the gutted torso, working with forceps and a long-bladed instrument she called the "butter knife." Corazon was not tall and she stood on her tiptoes to be able to reach down and in with her tools. She braced her hip against the side of the autopsy table to gain leverage. — Michael Connelly

You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime. — Glenn Hoddle

Working up these mountains is as good as it gets, at least as long as you are not freezing or sodden (though even then you feel alive in ways that I don't in modern life behind glass). There is a thrill in the timelessness up there. I have always liked the feeling of carrying on something bigger than me, something that stretches back through other hands and other eyes into the depths of time. To work there is a humbling thing, the opposite of conquering a mountain, if you like; it liberates you from any illusion of self-importance. — James Rebanks

In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren't enough euros to go around. "The entire EU is short on coins."
And I say, "Really?" because there are plenty of them in Germany. I'm never asked for exact change in Spain or Holland or Italy, so I think the real problem lies with the Parisian cashiers, who are, in a word, lazy. Here in Tokyo they're not just hard working but almost violently cheerful. Down at the Peacock, the change flows like tap water. The women behind the registers bow to you, and I don't mean that they lower their heads a little, the way you might if passing someone on the street. These cashiers press their hands together and bend from the waist. Then they say what sounds to me like "We, the people of this store, worship you as we might a god. — David Sedaris

He threw her a crooked grin as he removed his shirt completely, revealing a torso that seemed too perfectly muscular and finely honed to be real. Unbearable tension knotted inside her, and she struggled with inhibition and modesty as he bent over her. "Shall I stop now?" he asked, cuddling her against his long body. "I don't want to frighten you."
Her cheek pressed against his shoulder, and she relished the exhilarating sensation of pressing her bare skin against his. She had never felt so vulnerable, so willing to be vulnerable. "I'm not afraid," she said, her voice dazed and wondering, and she withdrew her hands from between their bodies, so that her breasts pushed directly against his chest.
An aching sound came from his throat, and he buried his face against her throat, kissing her, working his way downward. — Lisa Kleypas

Don't rule out working with your hands. It does not preclude using your head. — Andy Rooney

Our point of view is, lets not be so elitist that we can't honor good, hard, dignified, ennobling work: people working with their hands, building things, putting up solar panels, weatherizing homes, working on organic agriculture, building wind farms. We don't have robots in society, so somebody has to do that work. Lets make sure that the people who can use that work get a chance to do it. I see that as a first step toward bigger and better things. — Van Jones

If I have learned anything this week, it is that there is a contemplative way of working that is more important for me than praying, reading, or singing. Most people think that you go to the monastery to pray. Well, I prayed more this week than before but also discovered that I have not learned yet to make the work of my hands into a prayer. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

When she saw how they worked, not on their own but two by two, working their trunks together to tie a knot, she realized why they'd been so astonished by her hands, because of course she could tie knots on her own. At first she felt that this gave an advantage
she needed no one else
and then she realized how it cut her off from others. Perhaps all human beings were like that. — Philip Pullman

You should not have idle hands, you should always be working. All your life. — Ivan Bunin

Labor, under their current leadership, want to be the Downtown Abbey party when it comes to educational opportunity. They think working class children should stick to the station in life they were born into - they should be happy to be recognized for being good with their hands and not presume to get above themselves. — Michael Gove

When I rest my head on the couch I know that it's coming, coming like something in the mail, something sent away for. We know it is coming, but are not sure when
weeks? months? She is fifty one. I am twenty-one. My sister is twenty-three. My brothers are twenty-four and seven.
We are ready. We are not ready. People know.
Our house sits on a sinkhole. Our house is the one being swept up in the tornado, the little train-set model floating helplessly, pathetically around in the howling black funnel. We're weak and tiny. We're Grenada. There are men parachuting from the sky.
We are waiting for everything to finally stop working
the organs and systems, one by one, throwing up their hands
"The jig is up," says the endocrine; "I did what I could," says the stomach, or what's left of it; "We'll get em next time," adds the heart, with a friendly punch to the shoulder. — Dave Eggers

The perfect woman, you see [is] a working-woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who [uses] her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others. — Thomas Hardy

I has always thought the world was good, that everyone could find the beauty in themselves. Everyone could honor, and forgive, and live a full and gorgeous life, even when the hands they'd been dealt weren't easy.
But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was.
Her power was tremendous, working through her, but it had gone to rot, and without someone to help her and to love her, she did not know how to take it back. — Brenna Yovanoff

Does not the whole history of socialism, particularly of French socialism, which is so rich in revolutionary striving, show us that when the working people themselves take power in their hands the ruling classes resort to unheard-of crimes and shootings if it is a matter of protecting their money-bags. — Vladimir Lenin

Under Polly's eyes, her gaunt cheeks, and her shaking hands as she poured the tea. * * * Cat watches as her cab winds its way through the streets of Soho, thinking she would never stoop to that. It's the lowest of the low. We're supposed to be features writers, not news hacks. But behind her mutterings, behind her disdain, as unwilling as she is to admit it, lies a ribbon of insecurity. The Daily Gazette is the best paper she could ever imagine working for, but Cat, just past her mid-twenties, has yet to prove herself with a big story. She's proving adept at the smaller fluff pieces - How to wear a scarf in thirty different ways! How to put the romance back into your marriage! (As if she would know anything about that.) How to revamp your wardrobe in five easy steps! But the big interviews, the ones that Poppy — Jane Green

I give 110% while I am working. I know I do, because I have been doing this since I was nine. This is a way of life for me. So whether it be successful or not is not in my hands. I still do my job, the best I can. — Kate Del Castillo

It is essential to love that it be, not a focus of two persons on each other, but of two persons on the same thing external to them both.

Although it has always been on offer, God's love cannot really be experienced unless or until one works side by side with him at transforming the world--unless or until one has confronted real affliction with him ("suffer[ed] with him,' Paul says in Romans 8:17) while tackling the task of remodeling the world (in what Paul calls, again in Romans 8:17, being "joint-heirs with Christ").

Love, in other words, has to be understood as more than a mere emotion; it is a way of being together in the world or, better, a way of working together to change the world.

What begins as a kind of instrumentality--I hope only to be a toll in God's hands--eventually becomes a very real partnership, ideally bound by covenant. — Joseph M. Spencer

Describing good relatedness to someone, no matter how precisely or how often, does not inscribe it into the neural networks that inspire love. Self-help books are like car repair manuals: you can read them all day, but doing so doesn't fix a thing. Working on a car means rolling up your sleeves and getting under the hood, and you have to be willing to get dirt on your hands and grease beneath your fingernails. Overhauling emotional knowledge is no spectator sport; it demands the messy experience of yanking and tinkering that comes from a limbic bond. If someone's relationship today bear a troubled imprint, they do so because an influential relationship left its mark on a child's mind. When a limbic connection has established a neural pattern, it takes a limbic connection to revise it. (177) — Thomas Lewis

O youth ... be assured that knowledge alone does not strengthen the hand ... Though a man read a hundred thousand scientific questions and understood them or learned them, but did not work with them
They do not benefit him except by working ... Knowledge is the tree, and working is its fruit; and though you studied a hundred years and assembled a thousand books, you would not be prepared for the mercy of Allah the Exalted except by working. — Al-Ghazali

When bridges seem to give way, we fall into Christ's safe arms, true bridge, and not into hopelessness. It is safe to trust! We can be too weak to go on because His strength is made perfect in utter brokenness and nail-pierced hands help up. It is safe to trust! We can give thanks in everything because there's a good God leading, working all things into good. It is safe to trust! The million bridges behind us may seem flattened to the earthly eye, but all bridges ultimately hold, fastened by nails. It is safe to trust. — Ann Voskamp

I never wanted to be a businessman; I was a craftsman and good at working with my hands. At some point, I decided that this company is my best resource. Patagonia now exists to put into practice all the things that smart people are saying we have to do not only to save the planet but to save the economy. — Yvon Chouinard

Salvation is worth working for. It is worth a man's going round the world on his hands and knees, climbing its mountains, crossing its valleys, swimming its rivers, going through all manner of hardship in order to attain it. But we do not get it in that way. It is to him who believes. — Dwight L. Moody

I find that as a female boss in the music industry, it's difficult to actually be treated as if you actually are the boss and to have people act on your instructions and take you seriously. Like you call up people who are working for you and say, "I'd like to see such-and-such document," and they tell you that you don't need it. Then you have to spend time convincing them that it doesn't matter whether they think you need it or not, they're supposed to hand it to you. — Sinead O'Connor

That was bad; i shouldn't have done that
to prevent you from entering a catatonic state
i am going to maintain a calm facial expression
with crinkly eyes and an overall friendly demeanor
i believe in a human being that is not upset
i believe if you are working i should not be insane
or upset
why am i ever insane or upset and not working?
i vacuumed the entire house this morning
i cleaned the kitchen and the computer room
and i made you a meat helmet with computer paper
the opportunity for change exists in each moment, all moments are alone
and separate from other moments, and there are a limited number of moments
and the idea of change is a delusion of positive or negative thinking
your hands are covering your face
and your body moves like a statue
when i try to manipulate an appendage
if i could just get you to cry tears of joy one more time — Tao Lin

If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. — Benjamin Franklin

I had a very blessed journey with the upbringing I had. When you're working on sets as a stuntman, you have a firsthand account of the dynamics between actors and directors, because you're working hand in hand with them. You're not sitting outside the process watching. You become part of the process. You also see your tradecraft and see how movies are made. — Ric Roman Waugh

You're not going to disappear," I said. "I won't let you".
"Even if this is all there is? Going to school and working at my uncle's restaurant and fighting with Mari? Why would anyone want to remember this?"
"I want to remember you. Just like this."
She rolled onto her back, hands covering her face, and I pulled them away.
"People like you don't disappear," I said.
"Then where do they go?"
"Everywhere. — Laekan Zea Kemp

God's work is not man working for God; it is God's own work, though often wrought through man's hands. — Hudson Taylor

I went to California at a perfect time ... when many of those people that I had admired so much in films were not working that much. They had free time on their hands to talk to ... me, and they liked me because I knew so much about them. — Robert Osborne

Bear with me G-Harrison because this is going to be a long speech. I've always had this feeling that the world is not enough and I won't be happy in life unless I hold hands with a girl who has a golden eye and a gold finger; I beat the living daylights out a guy called Dr No; I get a postcard from my friend who lives in Russia which reads 'From Russia with love'; I spend some time working for her majesty's secret service; I play the Thunderball Super Spud lottery; I meet a guy called Moonraker; I finally get a licence to kill, which I applied for months ago; I buy a house with a view to kill for and I get a pet octopus called Octopussy. If only I lived twice and tomorrow never died, maybe then I would get a chance to fulfil my dreams. — Michael Diack

As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. — Voltairine De Cleyre

I try Dr. Pat's breathing exercises but they're not working because my entire mind is focused on keeping myself glued to the couch. I don't want to move any closer to the bathroom just in case. But I hate myself for the thought. I know it's not right or normal. I know I'm not simply some cute quirky girl like Beck says, and every moment I can't get off the couch is a moment that makes me one level crazier. That heavy, pre-crying feeling floods my sinuses and I drop my head from the weight of it. Cover my face with my hands long enough to get out a cry or two. Because there is nothing, nothing worse than not being able to undo the crazy thoughts. I ask them to leave, but they won't. I try to ignore them, but the only thing that works is giving in to them.
Torture: knowing something makes no sense, doing it anyway. — Corey Ann Haydu

Children get dealt grossly unequal hands, but that is all the more reason to treat them equally in school, Chris thought. "I think the cruelest form of prejudice is ... if I ever said, 'Clarence is poor, so I'll expect less of him than Alice.' Maybe he won't do what Alice does. But I want his best." She knew that precept wasn't as simple as it sounded. Treating children equally often means treating them very differently. But it also means bringing the same moral force to bear on all of them, saying, in effect, to Clarence that you matter as much as Alice and won't get away with not working, and to Alice that you won't be allowed to stay where you are either. — Tracy Kidder

I am slightly offended by the way busy working women my age are presented in film. I'm not, like, always barking orders into my hands-free phone device and telling people constantly, "I have no time for this!" I didn't completely forget how to be nice and feminine because I have a career. — Mindy Kaling

They wanted you to grow up into some helpless combination of old person and infant. They wanted you to have a house and a family and a refrigerator and a TV, and not know how any of it worked. They wanted you to spend your life working on something that was never concrete, never anything you could see or hold in your hands, and if you didn't do that they wanted to put you in jail. Cutting down forests, poisoning the earth - it was a country driven by stupid, blind impulse. It was a country where nobody knew where their food came from or where their garbage went, they just flushed the bowl, kept eating it and throwing it away, building bombs and computers, cars and TVs, sending people off to Vietnam so they could set it on fire. It was a country that had turned against everyone he knew, cast them out like garbage, and all they could do was smile to themselves at all they'd learned and wait patiently for the fires to start here at home. — Zachary Lazar

Fuck being bored. You shouldn't ever be bored. You can always read and be smarter. You can always work out and be in better shape. You can always play your instrument and get better at it. Your space can always be cleaner. Blue-collar work is when you work with your hands--white-collar work is behind a desk. I'm not as grimy as my father, who made his living with a wrench, but everything I have comes from working with my hands. — Travis Barker

We have a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labour movement would not be worth fighting for ... — Ben Chifley

In a strange way, I don't have a job, so I have a lot of time on my hands. When I do work, it might be very concentrated, and it might be months where you're not really doing anything except maybe playing the banjo or writing something. You know, there's a lot of time in the day if you're not working 9 to 5. — Steve Martin

Avery latched on to his neck and stayed on him. All Kane could do was lean his head back feeling the bottles shift behind him, giving Avery full access to his jaw and ear. Kane heard himself groan when Avery's teeth nipped the soft skin under his ear. Avery ground his hips forward and Kane involuntarily met him thrust for grinding thrust. "Come home with me. No, fuck home. I want you right here." Kane couldn't think with the sexy low voice whispering across his ear. Avery's hands were on him, seeking, and he pulled Kane's shirt from his slacks and unbuckled his belt. He was surprised to find his own hands working himself free, not Avery's. Loud beeps stopped Kane in his tracks as the security code to the wine cellar was entered. — Kindle Alexander

Look back, believer: think of your doubting God when he has been so faithful to you
think of your foolish outcry of "Not so, my Father," when he crossed his hands in affliction to give you the larger blessing; think of the many times when you have read his providences in the dark, misinterpreted his dispensations, and groaned out, "All these things are against me," when they are all working together for your good! Think how often you have chosen sin because of its pleasure, when indeed, that pleasure was a root of bitterness to you! — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

To it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits[1] of the world, and not according to Christ. 9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. — Anonymous

Therefore, to you, and to the fifty governors, I have a request. Please, do not send me politicians. We do not have the time to do the things that must be done through that process. I need people who do real things in the real world. I need people who do not want to live in Washington. I need people who will not try to work the system. I need people who will come here at great personal sacrifice to do an important job, and then return home to their normal lives. I want engineers who know how things are built. I want physicians who know how to make sick people well. I want cops who know what it means when your civil rights are violated by a criminal. I want farmers who grow real food on real farms. I want people who know what it's like to have dirty hands, and pay a mortgage bill, and raise kids, and worry about the future. I want people who know they're working for you and not themselves. That's what I want. That's what I need. I think that's what a lot of you want, too. — Tom Clancy

[Time is] a glowing puddle you carry in your hands; you should spend all your energy protecting it. Fighting for it. Working hard not to spill one single drop. — Anthony Doerr

At that period, rising in the world meant giving up working with your hands in favor of work in a store or an office. The people who lived in town had made it, and turned their backs socially on those who had not but were still growing corn and wheat out there in the country. What seemed like an impassable gulf was only the prejudice of a single generation, which refused to remember its own not very remote past. — William Maxwell

Mitt Romney's rally in Mansfield, Ohio, on Monday began the way every political event begins. 'Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and our country's national anthem.' This is always an uncomfortable moment for me. While I sat at my laptop, most of the reporters around me stood and put their hands over their hearts. This time instead of just sitting and working, I tweeted what I was feeling: 'Ari_Shapiro: As a reporter I'm torn about joining in the pledge of allegiance/national anthem at rallies. I'm a rally observer, not a participant.' — Ari Shapiro

To men like that, time was a surfeit, a barrel they watched slowly drain. When really, he thinks, it's a glowing puddle you carry in your hands; you should spend all your energy protecting it. Fighting for it. Working so hard not to spill one single drop. — Anthony Doerr

The ultimate solution is not in the hands of the government. The solution falls on each and every individual, with guidance from family, friends and community. The #1 responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. This is of greater importance than working on changing the government; that is secondary to promoting a virtuous society. If we can achieve this, then the government will change. — Ron Paul

Snapshots that have been taken of me working show something I was not aware of at all, that over and over again I'm holding my own body or my own hands exactly like the person I'm photographing. I never knew I did that, and obviously what I'm doing is trying to feel, actually physically feel, the way he or she feels at the moment I'm photographing them in order to deepen the sense of connection. — Richard Avedon

It was a matter of not living lavishly but enjoying what you had, growing things with your hands, working hard, but not being tied to a nine-to-five job, and generally feeling that there's more to life than money. — John Sulston

A HOW-TO ON DISAPPEARING

No one understands the way we break.
Not jagged. Not knife sliding between ribs.
Not the spine, cracking.

That would be too easy.

That would be being able to know that
you're broken. That would be X-rays
showing the gaps, the fissures.
Clean breaks are easier to heal.
We do not break cleanly.

We break without breaking.
Not a crack, but a fog.
We dissipate.
Body here one moment and
not here the next.

Hands working one moment and
a dead weight the next.

We watch ourselves turn
colourless. Watch ourselves
become invisible / invincible.

This way, at least the pain is our own.
That's what I wanted all along, I guess. — Darshana Suresh

Melodrama is one of my working tools and it enables me to obtain effects that would be unobtainable otherwise; on the other hand I am not deliberately melodramatic; don't get too annoyed if I say that I write in the way that I do because I am what I am. — Graham Greene

Let God operate in thee; Hand the work over to Him and do not disquiet thyself as to whether or no He is working with nature or above nature, for His are both nature and grace. — Meister Eckhart

How do you surrender when every cell of your being is screaming that your life is not working and that you need to do something to make it work? How do you surrender in that moment when jealousies, envy, doubt, rage, resentment all rise up inside you? You accept that you are resisting letting go; you accept that perhaps you are not yet ready to take your hands off the steering wheel; you accept this with kindness to who you are in the moment, being gentle and tender instead of beating yourself over the head with the 'Must hurry up, time is of the essence, everyone is passing me by' train of thought. — Kelly Martin

You really work in those conditions?"

She, irritated by the contact, pulled her arm away, protesting: "And how do you work, the two of you, how do you work?"

They didn't answer. They worked hard, that was obvious. And at least Enzo in front of him, in the factory, women worn out by the work, by humiliations, by domestic obligations no less than Lila was. Yet now they were both angry because of the conditions _she_ worked in; they couldn't tolerate it. You had to hide everything from men. They preferred not to know, they preferred to pretend that what happened at the hands of the boss miraculously didn't happen to the women important to them and that - this was the idea they had grown up with - they had to protect her even at the risk of being killed. In the face of that silence Lila got even angrier. "Fuck off," she said, "you and the working class. — Elena Ferrante

5Our standard of living, our very survival here, is based upon raw exploitation of working-class women - white black, and third world - in all parts of the world. Our hands are not clean. We must also come to terms with the that still largely unexamined, undisclosed faith in the idea of America, that no matter how unbearable it is here, it is better than anywhere else; that's slippage between third world and third rate. We eat bananas. Buy flowers. Use salt to flavour our food. Drink sweetened coffee. Use tires for the cars we drive. Depend upon state-of-the-art electronics. Travel. We consume and rely upon multiple choice to reify consumption. All those things that give material weight to idea of America - conflating capitalism and democracy, demarcating 'us' from 'them'. — M. Jacqui Alexander

One packed lunch. A meager amount of food. It was all the boy had, but he offered it all. If the boy had kept his little lunch, it would have remained little. If you keep your little, it will remain little as well. But if you step into the exchange zone ready to offer what little you have to be used by God in moving the baton forward, your little will be multiplied as you run. When the boy gave his little to Jesus, Jesus blessed it, and it became much in his hands. It is never about how little we have. It is about what our little has the potential to become in the hands of a miracle-working God. Don't focus on what you don't have, what you can't do, what isn't enough. Just offer your "not enough" to God, and he will multiply it into more than enough. — Christine Caine

I can't believe
no one else can hear
I am screaming
inside my head.
Things are moving too fast.
I am going to die.
I am going to die.
I am going to die.
My hands are shaking.
I try to squeeze them, try to make it stop,
but now my fists are shaking,
and this shaking is working it's way through me.
It must look like I am having a fit.
I want to let the scream out,
but I think if I start,
I'll never stop.
It's not supposed to be like this.
I am too young to die.
I don't know how to make this end,
and if it doesn't, I'll have to go to the hospital,
be medicated, force-fed soft foods.
I don't want to be that person.
I am not that person.
I am not.
I am not. — Samantha Schutz

He propelled himself in and out of me, his hands and hips working in sync to fuck me, not fast, not slow, but hard and deep. — Anonymous

I decided to make spaghetti for lunch again. Not that I was the least bit hungry. But I couldn't just go on sitting on the sofa, waiting for the phone to ring. I had to move my body, to begin working toward some goal. I put water in a pot, turned on the gas, and until it boiled I would make tomato sauce while listening to an FM broadcast. The radio was playing an unaccompanied violin sonata by Bach. The performance itself was excellent, but there was something annoying about it. I didn't know whether this was the fault of the violinist or of my own present state of mind, but I turned off the music and went on cooking in silence. I heated the olive oil, put garlic in the pan, and added minced onions. When these began to brown, I added the tomatoes that I had chopped and strained. It was good to be cutting things and frying things like this. It gave me a sense of accomplishment that I could feel in my hands. I liked the sounds and the smells. — Haruki Murakami

This is what working in what amounts to a rat's nest for the past decade has done to us, I think, looking at our reflections in the mirror. Ten years in a piece-of-crap studio in the armpit of Bushwick with full view-and-sound of the JMZ train, giving ourselves humpbacks craning over our drafting tables, Camels drooping from our mouths, passing expired packages of Peeps back and forth in the dark. The work has made me forget how to act like a person. We're not fit to go out and socialize with the fancy people, all Cheetos-stained hands and dilated pupils. — Kayla Rae Whitaker

Work - especially the sort of work that gets your hands dirty and that brands you as a member of the working class - no longer seems germane to our novelists' apprenticeships and, not coincidentally, is no longer easy to find in the fiction they produce. Whether one finds this scarcity something to worry about or simply a fact to be noted probably says a lot about one's class origins and prejudices. — Gerald Howard

I was beginning to see fewer of our weaknesses and more of our strengths; the events of the day were a reminder of how each of us had certain abilities that the rest did not. It was as if we were each a part of a whole body- one the hands, another the legs, and so on- dependent on one another and working best when we performed in unity. I felt inadequate then, unsure what part of this body I might be. — Patrick Carman

It's nice to always have a job and not be floating out in the ether waiting for whatever the next big thing is. So, in that way I hope there's no a shelf-life for great shows. On the other hand, you don't want to be working on something that's reached its peak and become irrelevant. — Mary Elizabeth Ellis

Art, although produced by man's hands, is something not created by hands alone, but something which wells up from a deeper source out of our soul ... My sympathies in the literary as well as in the artistic field are drawn most strongly to those artists in whom I see most the working of the soul. — Vincent Van Gogh

The only one in the valley who was working was Mooney Wright.
Harrison leaned over and kneaded his hands roughly. He was wary of Mooney. Mooney was a strong one, not subject to weakness at all. He had done only one grievous act, in Harrison's mind. He had taken Lorry and the boys from him.
For a man to be jealous of his daughter was a damnable thing, Harrison thought, though he realized he had been jealous of Lorry for years. It was to her that he had let his heart go out, yes, back when she was a small thing. — John Ehle

Often we comfort ourselves only with words, but if we pray enough, the conviction will come too that Christ is our King, not Stalin, Bevins, or Truman. That He has all things in His hands, that 'all things work together for good for those that love Him. — Dorothy Day

Everything was disparaged - the nation, because it was held to be an invention of the 'capitalist' class (how often I had to listen to that phrase!); the Fatherland, because it was held to be an instrument in the hands of the bourgeoisie for the exploitation of' the working masses; the authority of the law, because that was a means of holding down the proletariat; religion, as a means of doping the people, so as to exploit them afterwards; morality, as a badge of stupid and sheepish docility. There was nothing that they did not drag in the mud. — Adolf Hitler

I'm actually not in favour of decriminalizing cannabis
I'm in favour of legalizing it. Tax and regulate. It's one of the only ways to keep it out of the hands of our kids because the current war on drugs, the current model isn't working, — Justin Trudeau

How stupid, I thought dreamily, to have ever thought I could give this up. Not just the kissing, although, as Archer's hands cupped my face, I had to
admit that part was pretty awesome. But all of it: joking with him and working beside him. Being with a guy who was my friend and could stil make
me feel like this. — Rachel Hawkins

For when men know they are working on what belongs to them, they work with far greater eagerness and diligence. Nay, in a word, they learn to love the land cultivated by their own hands, whence they look not only for food but for some measure of abundance for themselves and their dependents. All can see how much this willing eagerness contributes to an abundance of produce and the wealth of a nation. — Pope Leo XIII

Do you know that besides our Tania, I don't know any other women who work outside the home?"
The women at the table seconded with murmurs. The men glanced at Alexander and then at their dirty forks. Tatiana stared at Alexander sitting across from her, and he gave her a look that said, You want to handle this one?
All right, Shura, I'll handle it. "Well, Karen," said Tatiana, putting down her fork and folding her hands, "I know I'm not the only nurse in my hospital. There are 194 other nurses, all women. And Anthony's teachers - all women. The librarians - women. Oh, and the tall ladies selling you makeup at the cosmetics counter at Macy's, women, too. Maybe," Tatiana said, "you don't know any women working outside the home, because they're too busy working. — Paullina Simons

I will not die for a long time." Joseph tugged at his gray beard. "My beard goes white, but there's a lot of life in me yet."
"Don't be so sure, Abba," Joshua said.
Joseph dropped the bowl he was working on and stared into his hands. "Run away and play, you two," he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
Joshua stood and walked away. I wanted to throw my arms around the old man, for I had never seen a grown man afraid before and it frightened me too. "Can I help?" I said, pointing to the half-finished bowl that lay in Joseph's lap.
"You go with Joshua. He needs a friend to teach him to be human. Then I can teach him to be a man. — Christopher Moore

I would not have taken you on. Jack's hands were clenched tightly in his lap, working against each other, sweating. Officious little prick, officious little prick, officious - — Stephen King

They live with the belief that anything is acceptable if you can get away with it, that self-gratification is the most important aspect of existence, and that power comes only to she or he who is strong enough and cunning enough to snatch it from the failing hands of those who no longer deserve it. Compassion has no place in Menzoberranzan, and yet it is compassion, not fear, that brings harmony to most races. It is harmony, working toward shared goals, that precedes greatness. — R.A. Salvatore

Twentieth-century man needs to be reminded at times that work is not the result of the Fall. Man was made to work, because the God who made him was a 'working God.' Man was made to be creative, with his mind and his hands. Work is part of the dignity of his existence. — Sinclair B. Ferguson