Head On Quotes & Sayings

I should have been conceived during Woodstock; it's in my blood: that burning desire to turn an absolute on its head and see what's underneath. I'm as random as I can be and as responsible as I should be. Attempting to fuse the two makes for interesting days. — Chila Woychik

She wasn't invisible anymore. She'd stepped dead-bang into the spotlight, and she'd painted a big bull's-eye on her head. — Joe Schreiber

I'm not really interested in the audience's enjoyment,' Cave mumbles once he has changed into clean pants. 'It doesn't bother me one way or another. I just don't give a shit. People feel more and more disappointed with each concert because less and less happens. It's really easy to suck an audience in. Like, I can wiggle my bum and back-flip on my head and they love it. I could make an audience love me until the end of my days. There's just no point in it any more. I wish they'd just ... die. — Antonella Gambotto-Burke

How can he not love your hair? It's the same hair that grows out of his own armpits. The same hair that crawls up out his crotch on up his stomach. All over his chest. The very same. It grows out of his nose, over his lips, and if he ever lost his razor it would grow all over his face. It's all over his head, Hagar. It's his hair too. He got to love it. — Toni Morrison

My father then presented Honour with a cheque,

"This is from our family for you, only you. Put it in a bank and if my son ever treats you badly, use this to leave the idiot," he said.

I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes.

The haque mehr was traditionally given to the bride on the wedding day by the groom, it was an amount that would be hers for her lifetime to keep in case things went wrong and she needed to stand on her own two feet.

Dad had done his little trickery, and in his head and everyone else's, we had done all that was required from a nikah. — Ruth Ahmed

When you ran out the tunnel at the old Easter Road for a derby game, you'd get a spittal right on the back of your head. They were spitting on you as you ran out, which actually helped get you going. It was some place. — Drew Busby

You will not read voice on the page; you will hear it in your head. — Philip Gerard

I have a confession," Kai mumbled into her hair. She tilted her head to peer at him. "Careful. There could be paparazzi hiding behind these trees. Any confessions might end up on tomorrow's newsfeeds." He pretended to consider this for a moment, eyes twinkling, before he said, "I could live with that." She — Marissa Meyer

Sebastian Grey.
The worrds rang like a miserable moan in her head. On the list of men she ought not to be kissing, he had to rank at the top, along with the King, Lord Liverpool, and the chimney sweep. — Julia Quinn

Eddis looked around as if recalling a question that had nagged at her for several hours. "Where's Eugenides?" she asked.
For a moment the Attolian queen was immobile, her smile gone as if it had never been. The horse under her threw up its head as if the bit had twitched against its delicate mouth.
"Locked in a room," Attolia said flatly. "In Ephrata."
The smile faded from Eddis' face.
"I ordered the other prisoners released," Attolia explained. "I forgot that I had him locked up separately. I doubt my sensechal will have released him without my specific instruction to do so."
"You forgot?" Eddis asked.
"I forgot," Attolia said firmly, daring Eddis to contradict her.
"You will marry him?" Eddis asked, hesitant again.
"I said I would," snapped Attolia, and turned her horse away. Eddis followed. When they joined their officers, Attolia gave brisk orders and then rode on, heading back toward Ephrata without waiting for Eddis. — Megan Whalen Turner

Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head. — Meryl Streep

Luc would have put my head on a pike if you'd taken a hit." "How do you know I didn't?" I opened my mouth, then closed it again. "Did you?" His eyes went to sultry slits. "Do you want to look and see?" "Not especially." Liar, liar, pants on fire. — Chloe Neill

I was the head chef on the S.S. Diarrhea. — Mr. Krabs

Who you were," Lyre corrected, wiping his hand across the trickling blood on his face, smearing it over one cheek. "But it doesn't matter. You're still female." Natania's eyes narrowed, then she threw her head back and loosed a chiming peal of laughter. "You think you can defeat me with aphrodesia?" Lyre's eyes darkened to black. "I already have." Natania took a quick step back, her hand clenching around the Sahar as power leaped into her. Lyre's hand snapped down the front of his shirt where he kept his chain of spelled gems. He yanked it out, blood-coated fingers already clenched around a gem. Gold light flashed. The world went black. — Annette Marie

I originally passed on 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head' in 1969, so they gave it to B.J. Thomas. — Ray Stevens

He felt a strange urge, right then, just to put his head down and walk past, off into the night and never look back. Then he wouldn't have to be the Bloody-Nine again... He could've gone far away, and started new, and been whoever he wanted. But he'd tried that once already, and it had done him no good. The past was always right behind him, breathing on his neck. It was time to turn around and face it. — Joe Abercrombie

Mr. Bloemker moved closer. He smelled like a wet diaper. "What is it," he asked, looking over Lenore's shoulder.
"If it's what I think it is," said Lenore, "it's a sort of joke. A what do you call it. An antinomy."
"An antinomy?"
Lenore nodded. "Gramma really likes antinomies. I think this guy here," looking down at the drawing on the back of the label, "is the barber who shaves all and only those who do not shave themselves."
Mr. Bloemker looked at her. "A barber?"
"The big killer question," Lenore said to the sheet of paper, "is supposed to be whether the barber shaves himself. I think that's why his head's exploded, here."
"Beg pardon?"
"If he does, he doesn't, and if he doesn't, he does. — David Foster Wallace

The anger washed away in the knowledge that I was a hypocrite. I don't know how much of it showed on my face, but Jean-Claude cocked his head to one side. "Thoughts are flying across your face, ma petite, but what thoughts?" I stared up at him. "I think I owe you an apology." His eyes widened. "Then this is a truly historic occasion. What are you apologizing for?" I — Laurell K. Hamilton

Devil, do you dare approach me? and do you not fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? — Mary Shelley

A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. — John Steinbeck

Rhosh, remember the being's skin, smooth, dark brown skin, like this one's skin, and the being's hair. The hair was the same, thick like this and with loose curls and the very same golden streak in it, only broader and on the right side of the head. — Anne Rice

No reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head. — William Shakespeare

The head of the sledgehammer was cold, icy cold, and it touched his forehead as gently as a kiss.
'Pock! There,' said Czernobog. 'Is done.' There was a smile on his face that Shadow had never seen before, an easy, comfortable smile, like sunshine on a summer's day. The old man walked over to the case, and he put the hammer away, and closed the bag, and pushed it back under the sideboard.
'Czernobog?' asked Shadow. Then, 'Are you Czernobog?'
'Yes. For today,' said the old man. 'By tomorrow, it will all be Bielebog. But today, is still Czernobog.'
'Then why? Why didn't you kill me when you could?'
The old man took out an unfiltered cigarette from a pack in his pocket. He took a large box of matches from the mantelpiece and lit the cigarette with a match. He seemed deep in thought. 'Because,' said the old man, after some time, 'there is blood. But there is also gratitude. And it has been a long, long winter. — Neil Gaiman

If you're looking for good Mexican food in Vegas, you go to the Arts District. Jonesing for stupidly overpriced jeans or a rhine- stone T-shirt? The Fashion Show Mall has you covered. How about some quiet contemplation over that lost trust fund? Lake Mead's your man. Maybe getting stabbed, shot, or beaten to death is your thing, so head on up to North Vegas. But, if you're looking for a snapshot of city history, a reasonably affordable libation, and the rare sensation of getting squeezed through a kaleidoscope's poop chute, then you can't beat Fremont. — Daniel Younger

What was he looking for, a prince in fine velvets and a crown cocked on his head? Was it clothes that made a prince, Jemmy wondered, just as rags made a street boy? — Sid Fleischman

Statistics is a science which ought to be honourable, the basis of many most important sciences; but it is not to be carried on by steam, this science, any more than others are; a wise head is requisite for carrying it on. — Thomas Carlyle

That is, adoration was patient and waiting while love or, if you liked, plain sexual passion banged everything about. It either shouted or thought it knew too much, and it had always left him cold and had not involved his heart. Therefore, if he wanted to get involved now it would be on his own terms and at his own pace. — Bessie Head

Who's Kreacher?"
"The house-elf who lives here," said Ron. "Nutter. Never met one like him."
"He is not a nutter," said Hermione.
"His life's ambition is to have his head cut off and stuck up on a plaque like his mother", said Ron. "Is that normal, Hermione? — J.K. Rowling

And the pain is too much it's too much it's too much and my hands are on my head and I'm rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that's inside me.
And i fall back into it. — Patrick Ness

Let's say," Judd whispered, "that some fuck was to show up here and cause trouble. Let's say the piece of shit that put those bruises on your face shows up here, do you know what would happen?"
As I shook my head, Judd laid over the covers I rested under. "I would shoot the fucker. No warning shot. No flesh wound. One shot and it would be over. Do you understand? — Bijou Hunter

It is remarkable that a fist-gnawingly dire England performance still has the power to shock, when in some ways this one had all the exquisite unpredictability of Norman Wisdom approaching a banana skin in the immediate vicinity of a swimming pool...
The England shirt is the precise opposite of a superhero costume, turning men with extraordinary abilities into mild-mannered guys next door. Were Stephen Fry to pull it on, he would struggle to string a sentence together. Were Lucian Freud to slip it over his head he would turn his easel round to reveal a childlike scribble of a cat. — Marina Hyde

I put my fingers under Emily's chin, tilting her head up. "I love you."
Emily's dark eyes widen and if this moment wasn't so dire, I'd laugh at her expression. swipe a finger across her smooth cheek. "I've never said that to anyone and I don't plan on it being the last time, either. I love you, Emily, and I'm telling you we'll work ths out. — Katie McGarry

A square space with complicated ceremonies going on in it, the purpose of which is to transform animals into men. Two snakes, moving in opposite directions, have to be got rid of at once. Some animals are there, e.g. foxes and dogs. The people walk around the square and must let themselves be bitten by these animals in each of the four corners . If they run away all is lost. Now the higher animals come on to the scene-bulls and ibexes. Four snakes glide into the four corners. Then the congregation flies out. Two sacrificial priests carry in a huge reptile and with this they touch the forehead of a shapeless animal lump or life-mass. Out of it there instantly rises a human head, transfigured. A voice proclaims: "These are attempts at being. — David Lindorff

He does not wear a twitching, mobile, human face, but rather a mask, as it were, with its features in dignified equilibrium; he does not shout, nor does he even change his tone of voice. If a veritable storm-cloud empties itself on his head, he wraps himself in his cloak and slowly walks away from under it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out ... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore. — Marvin Hamlisch

When Grant Blue reaches me, he bends his head down close enough that I can smell the soap and promise on his skin. Clean living and popularity - It's quite the aftershave, let me tell you. If I'm being honest, the fact that he even has to bend to talk to me is making me want to swoon a little ... But just a little. — Isobel Irons

While she strode rapidly through the ward to the door at the other end, she was able to see that every bed or cot held an infant or a small child in whom the human template had been wrenched out of pattern, sometimes horribly, sometimes slightly. A baby like a comma, great lolling head on a stalk of a body... then something like a stick insect, enormous bulging eyes among stiff fragilities that were limbs... a small girl all blurred, her flesh guttering and melting - a doll with chalky swollen limbs, its eyes wide and blank, like blue ponds, and its mouth open, showing a swollen little tongue. A lanky boy was skewed, one half of his body sliding from the other. A child seemed at first glance normal, but then Harriet saw there was no back to its head; it was all face, which seemed to scream at her. — Doris Lessing

The pallbearers lowered the casket onto a metal stand, then moved to their seats. Thomas, James's brother, slid into the front pew beside Claire, who was dressed in a black suit with her silver hair coiled as tight and rigid as her posture. Phil, James's cousin, moved into the pew to stand on her other side. He turned and looked at me, dipping his head in acknowledgment. I swallowed, inching back until my calves pressed into the wood bench. Claire — Kerry Lonsdale

You have ten minutes," he told me. "Ten minutes to think about what you did wrong and how bad you feel right now. Are you ready?"

He'd actually clicked a button on his watch and timed me, and for those ten minutes I brooded and sulked and wallowed in humiliation. I remembered the errors I'd made on the field and corrected them in my head. I imagined punching every player on the opposing team square in the mouth. And then Dad told me my time was up.

"There. It's over now," he said. "Now you look forward and figure out how you're going to get better. — Elle Kennedy

Horace, fit, and athletic and light on his feet, gave their guards the fewest opportunities to beat him, although on one occasion an angry Tualaghi, furious that Horace misunderstood an order to kneel, slashed his dagger across the young man's face, opening a thin, shallow cut on his right cheek. The wound was superficial but as Evanlyn treated it that evening, Horace shamelessly pretended that it was more painful than it really was. He enjoyed the touch of her ministering hands. Halt and Gilan, bruised and weary, watched as she cleaned the wound and gently pated it dry. Horace did a wonderful job of pretending to bear great pain with stoic bravery. Halt shook his head in disgust.
"What faker," he said to Gilan. The younger Ranger nodded.
"Yes. He's really making a meal of it isn't he?" He paused, then added more ruefully, "Wish I'd thought of it first. — John Flanagan

When a bloke takes you out for a meal You'd think sex would be part of the deal Not a pat on the head And a cold lonely bed When he leaves without copping a feel — J.L. Merrow

On that walk around the building, two sets of cops coming out stopped to tell our guys to hustle us inside so they could head back out on the road. Accidents everywhere. A pileup on
each of two major roads. "Welcome to winter," one said. "When fifty percent of drivers should have their licenses temporarily suspended. — Kelley Armstrong

They wouldn't have believed me, and if they had they would have wanted me to explain.
And I had no explanation, no answers. When you're on a battleground, you don't have the
luxury of time to dwell on the various historical factors and sociopolitical influences that caused the war.
You just keep your head down and try to survive it, to shove the pages back in the book, close
the covers and pretend that nothing's broken, nothing's wrong. — Jennifer Weiner

I've fallen. I must have slipped. Hit my head on something. I think I'm going to be sick. Everything is red. I can't get up. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl . . . Three for a girl. I'm stuck on three, I just can't get any further. My head is thick with sounds, my mouth thick with blood. Three for a girl. I can hear the magpies - they're laughing, mocking me, a raucous cackling. A tiding. Bad tidings. I can see them now, black against the sun. Not the birds, something else. Someone's coming. Someone is speaking to me. Now look. Now look what you made me do. — Paula Hawkins

Ingvar was on his back, moaning quietly. The pillow under his head, his jacket and the blanket across him, and the mattress under him were all totally sodden as perspiration poured out of his body in a flood. Jesper looked at them wildly. "He's going to die, isn't he?" It was Edvin who slapped him on the back, almost sending him sprawling across the sweat-soaked figure on the mattress. "No, you idiot!" he said happily. "He's going to live. The fever's broken! — John Flanagan

Some people wouldn't see a traitor when they looked at me. Some people would see a survivor. Call me anything you like - I sleep fine at night. But you will look at me when you say it. Or I'll get so far in your face you'll be seeing me with your eyes closed. You'll be seeing me in your nightmares. I'll scorch myself on the backs of your eyelids. Get off my back and stay off it. I'm not the woman I used to be. If you want a war with me, you'll get one. Just try me. Give me an excuse to go play in that dark place inside my head. — Karen Marie Moning

Awful first drafts are fine - Agree with this.
If you don't finish something, you'll never get in the game. Just quell the voice in your head that says "Are you kidding? No one is going to want to read this drivel" and keep on going. You're going to revise and revise and then revise again anyway. — Jamie Freveletti

The truth a fairly important thing to hold on to when you've been pulled out of the sea after wanting to drown in it. I could've let the sea take me. I could easily be dead now, which is funny when you think of it. When I say funny, what I actually mean is weird and kind of disturbing.
When there's the loud sound of a siren screaming in your head it doesn't take too long before a feeling of not caring what happens washed over you and you become recklessly self- destructive. I used to be full of energy and happiness but I could barely remember those kinds of feelings. The cheerful, childish things I used to think had been replaced. A whole load of new realisations had begun to grow inside me like tangled weeds, and they were starting to kill me. That's why I'd make the decision that involved heading ogg to the pier on my pike in the middle of the night and cycling off it. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

On this evening, Mme. Padva wears a dress of black silk, hand embroidered with intricate patterns of cherry blossoms, something like a kimono reincarnated as a gown. Her silver hair is piled atop her head and held in place with a small jeweled black cage. A choker of perfectly cut scarlet rubies circles her neck, putting forth a vague impression of her throat having been slit. The overall effect is slightly morbid and incredibly elegant. — Erin Morgenstern

To turn Karl [Popper]'s view on its head, it is precisely the abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition of science. Once a field has made the transition, critical discourse recurs only at moments of crisis when the bases of the field are again in jeopardy. Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers. — Thomas Kuhn

I thought the force of my wanting must wake ye, surely. And then ye did come ... " He stopped, looking at me with eyes gone soft and dark. "Christ, Claire, ye were so beautiful, there on the stair, wi' your hair down and the shadow of your body with the light behind ye ... ." He shook his head slowly. "I did think I should die, if I didna have ye," he said softly. "Just then. — Diana Gabaldon

In spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and carefree and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. But now
I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can run over you, or the signboards that can fall on your head or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing. — Jean Webster

She turned her head to showcase the barrette. "What do you think?"
Emery's expression softened. "I think it's lovely. I did a good job on that."
Ceony rolled her eyes. "How modest. But thank you, for this. And the flowers. — Charlie N. Holmberg

The fact is that there is a contradiction going on but our brains don't like contradiction. So when Moe hits Curly on the head with a sledgehammer and Curly says, "ow" and Moe says, "Serves you right Numbskull", you can say that's because they're separate beings, and that's true. — Brad Warner

Love has been buried forever under the leaves at my feet. I lie down on the ground and rest my head on my bag. The grass tickles my arms where I bend the stalks under my neck.
I want to sleep. — Shan Sa

Georgie Porgie puddin' and pie. Kissed the boys and made them cry. What kind of name is Georgia?"
"My great-great grandma was Georgia. The first Georgia Shepherd. My dad calls me George."
"Yeah. I've heard him. That's just nasty."
I felt my temper rise in my cheeks, and I really wanted to spit on him from where I sat atop my horse, looking down on his neatly shorn, well-shaped head. He glanced up at me and his lips twitched, making me even angrier.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm not trying to be mean. But George is a terrible name for a girl. Hell, for anyone who isn't the King of England."
"I think it suits me," I huffed.
"Oh, yeah? George is the name for a man with a stuffy, British accent or a man in a white, powdered wig. You better hope it doesn't suit you."
"Well, I don't exactly need a sexy name, do I? — Amy Harmon

Door's open!" she shouted. She was in her underwear, lying on the floor, arms outstretched and legs up against the couch. She tilted her head back and looked at me upside down. "Charlie, darling! Why are you standing on your head? — Daniel Keyes

I guess in all of the obvious ways. I can afford more diapers for my children. If I want to buy a complete set of Garbage Pail Kids on Ebay I don't have to ask my wife so hard. For the most part, it's mostly the same. I keep my head down and I just work on comics for most of the time. — Robert Kirkman

You're both perfectly all right," she informed them. "And we will get Aurimere back, and our magic back, and our town back, and then we will have everything we need."

"We have some important stuff already," Ash offered tentatively.

Lillian frowned. "What do you mean?"

Jared surrendered himself to the strangeness of this situation, sank back onto the pillows himself with his head near Lillian's hip, and sighed heavily to attract his aunt's attention. "He wants to know you love him more than that stupid house."

"It is a very nice house," Aunt Lillian said, sounding offended. "Your ancestors are buried in the crypt of that house."

"Sure. Okay. We'll get our lovely creepy house back. When they bury me in that crypt, I want 'Jared, very inbred, deeply uncomfortable about it' on my tombstone. — Sarah Rees Brennan

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die. — C.S. Lewis

In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of getting one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as an article of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet. He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as — Mark Twain

I was on the set of the first Powers pilot, and an actor of color came up to me and said, "When I was a kid, my friends wouldn't let me play Batman or Superman, because I wasn't their color. But they would let me play Spider-Man. And that's the difference." And I realized I had heard this story a hundred times from different people, but I wasn't there in my head yet. — Brian Michael Bendis

We lay on our sides, like spoons nesting in a drawer. My arm ended up under her head, like a pillow. She curled snugly along the inside of my body, so easy and natural, as if she had been designed to fit there. - Kvothe - The Name Of The Wind - pg 629 — Patrick Rothfuss

I wore a GoPro camera on my head for all three of my boys. — Nick Woodman

Finally, one day, I couldn't stand it anymore: I walked into the kitchen, laid my head on the table, and asked my father, "How are we supposed to live every day if we know we're going to die?" He looked at me, clearly pained by the dawning of my genetically predestined morbidity. He had been the same way as a kid. A day never went by where he didn't think about his eventual demise. He sighed, leaned back in his chair, unable to conjure a comforting answer. "You just do. — Lena Dunham

turned her head away from the other woman to avoid showing her smile. "If people were sensible, the wedding venue would never be rented out, which means we'd be homeless and living on the streets." "Love doesn't — Penelope Sotheby

The fountain-head of rebellion, on the contrary, is the principle of
superabundant activity and energy. — Albert Camus

I am mad again, he thought. Tears brimmed. He swallowed in a tightened throat. I don't want to be. I'm tired, I'm tired and horny, I'm so tired I can't make sense out of any of it and my mind won't work right half the time I try. I'm thirsty. My head's all filled with kapok coffee wouldn't clear. Still, I wish I had some. Where am I going, what am I doing, stumbling in this smoking graveyard? It's not the pain; only that the pain keeps going on. He tried to let all his muscles go and stepped aimlessly from sidewalk to gutter, his mouth dryer and dryer and dryer. Well, he thought, if it hurts, it hurts. It's only pain. — Samuel R. Delany

If I could, I would take you with me," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
She tried to pull away from him. "You would not. You would grow tired of me in a few weeks."
He shook his head, pulling her tight against him. "No ... I could never grow tired of you."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked.
He brushed tendrils of hair from her face. "I have craved to know you for years ... even just to hear you speak my name ... a single touch of your hand on mine ... "
He kissed her softly, his lips tasting hers. "I want you to be mine ... I want you always."
- 'unknown script' 2012 — Faye Hall

It seems to me that I cannot afford, as a self-respecting individual, to refuse to do a thing merely because it will make me disliked or bring down a storm of criticism on my head. — Eleanor Roosevelt

He had thought on the train of sending his head to a laundry, it was true, but he had been drawn not so much to the idea of the laundered head as to that of the sleeping body. A very pleasant sleep, with head detached. — Yasunari Kawabata

The wiry man scratched his head, looked the two inquisitors up and down and cleared his throat softly. "We must be quick." He turned to go, pulling his cloak over his head and shuffling through the door into the moonlight. The two inquisitors moved with impossible silence behind, floating across the straw-covered floor like the cats on the walls outside the hut. The cats froze at the disturbance before scurrying noiselessly into the shadows as the three silhouettes crossed the ten yards of grass before the blackness of the forest swallowed them. No fires flickered at this time, when the full moon was highest in the cloudless summer sky, and the three were the only waking souls in the hamlet. — Gregory Figg

The professional gives an ear to criticism, seeking to learn and grow. But she never forgets that Resistance is using criticism against her on a far more diabolical level. Resistance enlists criticism to reinforce the fifth column of fear already at work inside the artist's head, seeking to break her will and crack her dedication. The professional does not fall for this. Her resolution, before all others, remains: No matter what, I will never let Resistance beat me. — Steven Pressfield

What shall I do?" she asked in a small voice.
"Forget your own self," he said.
"But all these years," she urged, "I have so carefully fulfilled my duty."
"Always with the thought of your own freedom in your mind," he said.
She could not deny it. She sat motionless, her hands folded on the pearl-gray satin of her robe. "Direct me," she said at last.
"Instead of your own freedom, think how you can free others," he said gently.
She lifted her head.
"From yourself," he said still gently. — Pearl S. Buck

I started the first drafts of the book during my sophomore year of college. I wasn't thinking at all about kids at the time. But I was thinking. A lot. About everything. I wish I could capture that head-space again; everything meant something to me in college. Every leaf, every sound, every lecture, every textbook. It's like I was on drugs, 24/7. I am glad I was able to pair that ceaseless pondering with plenty of time to write. What came of that time was the first draft of the novel, a lengthy, unnecessarily angst-driven pile of crap. Years later, with Zoloft, I approached the novel with a more level head, and came away with a much, much better novel. My advice to writers, I suppose, is write your novel when you feel like shit; edit when you feel great. — Caleb J. Ross

I remember as a very young child being warned that libraries and bookstores were quiet places where noise wasn't allowed. Here was yet another thing the adults had gotten wrong, for these book houses pulsed with sounds; they just weren't noisy. The books hummed. The collective noise they made was like riding on a large boat where the motor's steady thrum and tickle vibrated below one's sneakers, ignorable until you listened, then omnipresent and relentless, the sound that carried you forward. Each book brimmed with noises it wanted to make inside your head the moment you opened it; only the shut covers prevented it from shouting ideas, impulses, proverbs, and plots into that sterile silence. — Wendy Welch

Miranda!"
"What?" She batted him with her pillow.
"Hoyden! Are you drunk?"
"I don't think so. I'm not sure. They never gave us wine at Yardley. I feel happy."
"Happy?" He grabbed a corner of the pillow as she whacked him again with it. "Stop it!"
"You're too serious, Winterley!" She reached for another pillow. "I will beat you until you smile!"
He ducked out of his chair with a rakish grin as she swung at him, then tackled her flat on the soft bed, both of them laughing.
"You are ... impossible," he chided with a gentle sigh as he braced his elbows on either side of her head. He traced her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs.
"Difficult, but not impossible." She wrapped her arms around him, relishing the weight of him atop her, the smoothness of his bare chest against her bodice. "It all depends on who's trying."
"That sounded distinctly like an invitation," he murmured. — Gaelen Foley

Meditate?" I took my head out from under the pillow, shook dark hair back from my face, and rolled over on my side to look at him. "Excuse me, but the closest I ever got to having a spiritual awakening was dating a yoga instructor. Once. — Rachel Caine

You put your head on the ground, and in that moment everything was okay. — Yasmin Mogahed

Don't worry, he's coming with me to investigate things."
"In the city?" Jim asked.
"Yes."
"That's a great idea. You both should go. To the city."
Curran and I looked at each other.
"He's trying to get rid of us," I said.
"You think he's planning a coup?" Curran wondered.
"I hope so." I turned to Jim. "Is there any chance you'd overthrow the tyrannical Beast Lord and his psychotic Consort?"
"Yeah, I want a vacation," Curran said.
Jim leaned toward us and said in a lowered voice, "You couldn't pay me enough. This is your mess, you deal with it. I have enough on my plate."
He walked away.
"Too bad," Curran said.
"I don't know, I think we could convince him to seize the reins of power."
Curran shook his head. "Nahh. He's too smart for that. — Ilona Andrews

What," Scarlet breathed, clutching the bouquet, "is this?"
Wolf smiled around his canine teeth. "You are the most beautiful sight I have ever laid eyes on."
Scarlet cocked her head. "And you look like you're about to get married." There was blatant amusement in her tone. — Marissa Meyer

Moments later Griffin had Finley in the carriage, and Jasper sat on the seat across from them.
"What's the matter with her?" he asked Griffin.
Griffin shook his head. "Nothing. She's just two personas struggling for dominance in one body."
The cowboy's eyebrows shot up, but his expression was sympathetic. "Poor little thing. — Kady Cross

Eeyore", said Owl, "Christopher Robin is giving a party."
"Very interesting," said Eeyore. "I suppose they will be sending me down the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and Thoughtful. Not at all, don't mention it."
"There is an Invitation for you."
"What's that like?"
"An Invitation!"
"Yes, I heard you. Who dropped it?"
"This isn't something to eat, it's asking you to the party. To-morrow."
Eeyore shook his head slowly.
"You mean Piglet. The little fellow with the exited ears. That's Piglet. I'll tell him."
"No, no!" said Owl, getting quite fussy. "It's you!"
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Christopher Robin said 'All of them! Tell all of them'"
"All of them, except Eeyore?"
"All of them," said Owl sulkily.
"Ah!" said Eeyore. "A mistake, no doubt, but still, I shall come. Only don't blame me when it rains. — A.A. Milne

But not every dog was Boo Radley. Sometimes a dog was just a dog. Sometimes a cat was just a cat. Still, I opened the screen door and stuck a red sticker on Lucille's head. — Kami Garcia

He limped slowly over to his own wooden sword and stooped awkwardly to pick it up. Trailing it on the ground behind him, he limped toward the queen, and the courtyard quieted as he approached and was silent again as he dropped to his knees before her and laid the sword across her lap.
"My Queen," he said.
"My King," she said back.
Only those closest saw him nod his rueful acceptance. He lifted his hand to brush her cheek softly. As the entire court listened breathlessly, he said, "I want my breakfast."
The queen's lips thinned, and she shook her head as she said, "You are incorrigible. — Megan Whalen Turner

He stopped moving for the space of a heartbeat. He bent his head to her shoulder and rocked his hips, pressing inside her. His hair fell forward around either side of his face, a frame of black, silky where it brushed her collarbone. "I am in paradise." His hips rocked again.
She closed her eyes tight. She felt his lips on her cheek and then on her eyelids, placing gentle kisses. — Carolyn Jewel

The trouble with being a daydreamer who doesn't say much is that the teachers at school, especially those who don't know you very well, are likely to think you're rather stupid. Or, if not stupid, then dull. No one can see the amazing things that are going on in your head. — Ian McEwan

I don't like the tone of your voice. Speak respectfully when you speak to me."
"La-dee-da, and ho-ho-ho! The day I speak respectfully to you, Christopher, will be the day you earn my respect - and that will be the day you stand twelve feet high, and the moon is at noon, and a blizzard blows in a unicorn ridden by a gallant knight wearing pure white shining armor, with a green dragon's head
perched on the point of his lance! — V.C. Andrews

The last decade has seen a powerful counterassault on women's rights, a backlash, an attempt to retract the handful of small and hard-won victories that the feminist movement did manage to win for women. This counterassault is largely insidious: in a kind of pop-culture version of the Big Lie, it stands the truth boldly on its head and proclaims that the very steps that have elevated women's position have actually led to their downfall. — Susan Faludi

What people are feeling is the similarity in what I do and how I'm capable of breaking a new artist into a competitive field. People can't wrap their head around the fact that Gaga did not do that on her own. She didn't. There was a Laurieann Gibson. — Laurieann Gibson

Americans want grungy people, stabbing themselves in the head on stage. They get a bright bunch like us, with deodorant on, they don't get it. — Liam Gallagher

Shepley shook his head. "No way. No fucking way, Trav. The guy's a maniac!"
"Yeah," Travis smiled, "but he's not fighting for his girl, is he?" Travis cradled me in his arms, kissing the top of my hair. "You okay, Pigeon?"

"This is wrong. This is wrong on so many levels. I don't know which one to talk you out of first."

"Did you not see me tonight? I'm going to be fine. I've seen Brock fight before. He's tough, but not unbeatable."

"I don't want you to do this, Trav. — Jamie McGuire

In a moment of weakness, he craned his head and kissed her on the shoulder, where the drop of blood had fallen before. — Marissa Meyer

The [Victory Gin] was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to look more cheerful. — George Orwell

Good dog,' she said, stoking his head. 'Good sweet dog.' That was one of the great things about dogs. They always loved you no matter what was going on. — R.L. Stine

Never trust the occultist who tells you that he is the head of a tradition, because if he were, in the first place, he would not tell the fact to the uninitiated, and in the second place he would in all probability be living in great seclusion and inaccessible to all but his immediate subordinates. If a man is a great artist he does not need to inform us of the fact; we shall know him by his pictures that are hung in the galleries of the nation, and we shall, moreover, find that he guards himself from casual acquaintances because of the inroads on his time to which his fame renders him liable. The more eminent a person, the harder he is to approach, not out of any spirit of pride and exclusiveness, but because so many people want to see him that discrimination has to be used in admitting them. — Dion Fortune

They give unconditional love and undying loyalty in return for regular meals and an occasional pat on the head. — Jon Winokur

Anyway ... she's asleep, turned away from me on her side. The usual stratagems and repositionings have failed to induce narcosis in me, so I decide to settle myself against the soft zigzag of her body. As I move and start to nestle my shin against a calf whose muscles are loosened by sleep, she sense what I'm doing, and without waking reaches up with her left hand and pulls the hair off her shoulders on the top of her head, leaving me her bare nape to nestle in. Each time she does this I feel a shudder of love at the exactness of this sleeping courtesy. My eyes prickle with tears, and I have to stop myself from waking her up to remind her of my love. At that moment, unconsciously, she's touched some secret fulcrum of my feelings for her. — Julian Barnes

It was there that I wanted, out there somewhere, when I sat elbow-to-elbow with my giggling friends and let my thoughts swirl up and away from the three-mile radius of our small town lives. In my head, I careened out of town and across state lines, until the landscape became strange and unfamiliar. I wanted to see all of it. Everything. The vast expanses of the flat Midwest, miles of horizontal earth with the curving horizon at its end. Strange, stunted trees and driftwood skeletons on the lonely windswept beaches of the farthest coasts. Towering oaks hung thick with the gray lace of Spanish moss, looming like hovering parents over shaded southern dirt. The California sun, dipping and disappearing into the ocean, tipping the waves with orange light. — Kat Rosenfield

And so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them."
"Braintape? — Maggie Stiefvater