His Number One Quotes & Sayings

He'd been sticking his neck out, which is literally the stupidest thing I can imagine anyone doing when it comes to vampires. That ought to be Rule Number One For Dealing With Vampires, right there. Don't stick your neck out! — Cherie Priest

Even as a raft, of course, it could have been made from gold, or any element with a molecular number lower than mercury. Lead would still sink in mercury, but gold shouldn't. It was one number down the Periodic Table and so ought to float. Veppers looked over the side of the vessel at where his ingot of gold had entered the liquid metal, but it showed no sign of surfacing yet. — Iain M. Banks

I do not believe that one can earnestly seek and find the priceless treasure of God's call without a devout prayer life. Each of us is the temple of the Lord, and it was the Lord who said, "My house will be called a house of prayer" (Isaiah 56:7). That is where God speaks. The purpose of prayer and of God's call in your life is not to make you number one in the world's eyes, but to make him number one in your life. His calling is perfect, and he has a specific place for each one. — Ravi Zacharias

When 1:45 came, half the class left, and Danny Hupfer whispered, "If she gives you a cream puff after we leave, I'm going to kill you" - which was not something that someone headed off to prepare for his bar mitzvah should be thinking.
When 1:55 came and the other half of the class left, Meryl Lee whispered, "If she gives you one after we leave, I'm going to do Number 408 to you." I didn't remember what Number 408 was, but it was probably pretty close to what Danny Hupfer had promised.
Even Mai Thi looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, "I know your home." Which sounded pretty ominous. — Gary D. Schmidt

He shook his head in disbelief. He would cook and take her to his place. He was about to break two of his own rules. Number one was to never create the intimacy of cooking for a woman he was seeing, and the other one, to never take her to his place. They had the nasty habit of leaving personal things behind and making his house an extension of their own. He had no other alternative - she shared her place with her brother - but somehow he was enjoying doing it for Mary.
Perfect Match — Marcia Weber Martins

The baking wind tore at his hat and he held it by the brim with one hand. It relieved him to look at it, for the great river was like a long tale, of both great joy and great woe. And it seemed to be a story road that a person could take, and it would take him to some place where he could free his mind. Men had striven against one another to control the unreeling river-road, battling at New Madrid and Island Number Ten, at Baton Rouge and Vicksburg, in the heat of the summer and the humid choking air of the malarial swamps. But the river carried away men and guns and the garbage of war, covering it over, washing itself clean again as if they had never been. — Paulette Jiles

Do I believe a thing has limits!? Of course! Nothing exists that doesn't have limits. Existence means there's always something else, and so everything has limits. Why is it so hard to conceive that a thing is a thing, and that it isn't always being some other thing that's beyond it?"

At that moment I felt in my bones not that I was talking to a man, but to another universe. I tried one last time, from another angle, which I felt compelled to consider legitimate.

"Look, Caeiro... think about numbers... Where do they end? Take any number - say 34. Past it we have 35, 36, 37, 38 - there can be no end to it. There is no number so big that there is no number larger..."

"But that's just numbers," protested my master Caeiro.

And then, looking at me out of his formidable, childlike eyes:

"What is 34 in Reality, anyway? — Alvaro De Campos

This crude, cowardly bargain seems not to have unduly bothered Hitler. If Mussolini was personally attracted to him, as Ciano said, by "something deeply rooted in his make-up," it might be said that the attraction was mutual, for the same mysterious reasons. Disloyal as he had been to some of his closest associates, a number of whom he had had murdered, such as Roehm and Strasser, Hitler maintained a strange and unusual loyalty to his ridiculous Italian partner that did not weaken, that indeed was strengthened when adversity and then disaster overtook the strutting, sawdust Roman Caesar. It is one of the interesting paradoxes of this narrative. — William L. Shirer

She made a creche outside the Inn. The natives thought it was wonderful, and Sister Honey was gratified by their numbers.
Why have the devils with wings come to mock at the poor baby?' asked the children, pointing to the angels.
The baby is the Number One Lord Jesus Christ,' Ayah told them.
But he hasn't any clothes on! Aren't they going to give Him anything? Not a little red robe? Not a bit of melted butter?'
This is His Mother,' said Ayah, showing them the little porcelain Virgin in blue and white and pink. 'He is her child.'
That isn't true,' said the women, measuring the baby with their eyes. 'He's too big to be possible. Probably He's a dragon, an evil spirit in the shape of a child, and presently He'll eat up the woman. — Rumer Godden

He loved how much they loved each other. It was the thing he thought about when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. Not that they loved him - they were his parents, they had to love him. That they loved each other. They didn't have to do that. None of his friends' parents were still together, and in every case, that seemed like the number one thing that had gone wrong with his friends' lives. But Park's parents loved each other. They kissed each other on the mouth, no matter who was watching. What were the chances you'd ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible. How did his parents get so lucky? — Rainbow Rowell

A teasing smirk flitted across his face, as he completed his thought, "I'll try not to take it too hard if I fail miserably, because you can be the world's greatest skeptic ... "
"Nah ... " I coughed out a little chuckle, "not when you're involved. I'm your number one fan ... You couldn't shake me if you tried." I gave him a playful wink, adding musingly, "Though I might stop short of hanging out in the bushes with binoculars ... "
"Well, then," he grinned, "clearly you're not my number one fan. — M.A. George

It wasn't long before I had the urge to glance inside. I then had a slight moment of panic. Number one, Big John was walking out the door with a meat cleaver gleaming in his hand. Yes, a meat cleaver.
Number two, he was glaring at Caleb like he was the devil himself. — Shelly Crane

Cantor illustrated the concept of infinity for his students by telling them that there was once a man who had a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, and the hotel was fully occupied. Then one more guest arrived. So the owner moved the guest in room number 1 into room number 2; the guest in room number 2 into number 3; the guest in 3 into room 4, and so on. In that way room number 1 became vacant for the new guest.
What delights me about this story is that everyone involved, the guests and the owner, accept it as perfectly natural to carry out an infinite number of operations so that one guest can have peace and quiet in a room of his own. That is a great tribute to solitude. — Peter Hoeg

Lesson number one in trying to develop the ability of independent thought: Understand that EVERYTHING the government says has the potential to be lies and deception. You can believe it's the truth only after you question, exhaust every avenue, and find that their story checks out. If you're a patriot, it's your duty to always question your government anyway, at every turn. A patriot is loyal to his country and his countrymen, not his government. — Derek R. Audette

I think George Mitchell was the right guy for the right time, and many people will note his spectacular foreign policy accomplishments, both in and out of office. I think all would note his devotion to Maine; that was number one. The fact he did work in a bipartisan basis with Bill Cohen. And for me, he helped the first Democratic woman get elected. — Barbara Mikulski

James Brown had many guises, many names: Crip, Music Box, The Hardest Working Man In Show Business, Mr. Please Please Please, Butane James, Soul Brother Number One, Skates, The Godfather of Soul...He was His Own Bad Bad Self, the Sex Machine, Black Elvis, the Minister of the New New Super Heavy Funk, The Original Disco Man, Universal James. But before any of them, he was simply a dancer doing the James Brown. — R.J. Smith

We blacks were the first people embracing Obama, long before the people at expensive fundraisers were supporting him. We gave him his first love, 96 percent of blacks voted for him in 2008. Yet today we are the number one in unemployment, with 16 percent of American blacks out of work. — Jesse Jackson

My family is number one in my life. I'll blow off writing or just about anything to make sure I take my son to preschool or watch him at his swimming lesson. — Henry Cho

Such contentedness and change of view in regard to every kind of life does the infusion of reason bring about. When Alexander heard from Anaxarchus of the infinite number of worlds, he wept, and when his friends asked him what was the matter, he replied, Is it not a matter for tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, I have not conquered one? — Plutarch

I can't promise you anything beyond this, Shannon. Hell, maybe nothing will happen. My body isn't like it used to be. But I can make sure you're taken care of." She gave him the sweetest, sexiest smile and looped her arms up around his neck. "John, I'm sure you'll take care of me. I have no doubt. And don't worry about promises. I'm here, number one, because I am your friend. I want the best for you. If I can help you over this hurdle, so to speak, I will." His throat tightened with emotion, and his eyes burned. He buried his face in her hair to keep her from seeing. He had to clear his throat several times before he could talk though. "Thank you, Shannon. We're friends with benefits, now, huh?" She giggled beneath him, and nipped his neck. "I guess so." He — J.M. Madden

with its graceful language and poetic conceit, and even more because it expressed his own philosophy of science. To wit: As earnestly as men may seek to understand the workings of the universe, they must remember that God is not hampered by their limited logic - that all observed effects may have been wrought by Him in any one of an infinite number of omnipotent ways, and these must ever evade mortal comprehension. — Dava Sobel

I have done very little besides sending away some of the large looking-glasses from my dressing-room, which was your father's. A very good man, and very much the gentleman I am sure: but I should think, Miss Elliot," (looking with serious reflection), "I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life. Such a number of looking-glasses! oh Lord! there was no getting away from one's self. So I got Sophy to lend me a hand, and we soon shifted their quarters; and now I am quite snug, with my little shaving glass in one corner, and another great thing that I never go near. — Jane Austen

The Boys and the Frogs SOME BOYS, playing near a pond, saw a number of Frogs in the water and began to pelt them with stones. They killed several of them, when one of the Frogs, lifting his head out of the water, cried out: Pray stop, my boys: what is sport to you, is death to us. — Aesop

Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times in his life when he has one too few; but if he has only one enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many. — Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Molly Notkin often confides on the phone to Joelle van Dyne about the one tormented love of Nokin's life thus far, an erotically circumscribed G.W. Pabst scholar at New York University tortured by the neurotic compulsion that there are only a finite number of erections possible in the world at any one time and that his tumescence means e.g. the detumescence of some perhaps more deserving or tortured Third World sorghum farmer — David Foster Wallace

Don't look so worried. I've sailed the seven seas, and I've never had an unsuccessful adventure yet!"
"Really? You've sailed all seven seas?" asked Darwin admiringly.
"Every last one!"
"What are the seven seas? I've always wondered."
"Aaarrr. Well, let's see ... " said the Pirate Captain, scratching his craggy forehead. "There's the North Sea. And that other one, the one near Mozambique. And ... what's that one in Hyde Park?"
"The Serpentine?"
"That's the one. How many's that then? Three. Um. There's the sea with all the rocks in it ... I think they call it Sea Number Four. Then that would leave ... uh ... Grumpy and Sneezy ... "
Darwin was starting to look a little less impressed.
"Would you look at that big seagull!" said the Pirate Captain, quickly ducking into a beach hut. — Gideon Defoe

The brief story of the supper at Emmaus carries within it a number of core principles of the Christian life as Luke understands it. First, the idea that one comes to know Christ through acts of generosity to other human beings. It is because of their kindness to a stranger that the disciples find the beloved teacher whom they had lost. Second, there is the idea that they can conjure his presence in prayer and in communal acts such as the breaking of bread - by remembering his life, death, and resurrection - even in an undistinguished house in an anonymous village. The simple acts of generosity and community in daily life are the acts that make real the living presence of Jesus. — Kate Cooper

Imagination. As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw - and it didn't improve his mood - was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes. "Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly. The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look. Was this normal cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying — J.K. Rowling

You have to go into rehab after doing a David Walliams book. David is such an important man; publishers rate him very, very highly, His books usually go straight to the bestseller number one spot on the day of publication. He is a hugely important writer as far as HarperCollins, his publishers, are concerned. — Tony Ross

Knowledge is power, as some say. But on some days it is just as much pain and confusion as it is power; and any wise man worth his salt as a wise man at least understands this. One may be able to comprehend all the human perspectives in the universe, but this gives more to decipher regarding what is actually true; and even after discovering the truth, the challenge is in maintaining a patience for the infinite number of opinions that do not reflect that truth. Its consistency in man is challenge. A worldly knowledge ends at the former challenge of confusion, but the knowledge of Christ ends at the latter challenge of patience. — Criss Jami

I had four blak arrows under my belt,
Four for the greefs that I have felt,
Four for the number of ill menne
That have oppressid me now and then.
One is gone; one is wele sped;
Old Apulyaird is dead.
One is for Maister Bennet Hatch,
That burned Grimstone, walls and thatch.
One for Sir Oliver Oates,
That cut Sir Harry Shelton's throat.
Sir Daniel, ye shull have the fourt;
We shall think it fair sport.
Ye shull each have your own part,
A blak arrow in each blak heart.
Get ye to your knees for to pray;
Ye are ded theeves, by yea and nay!
JON AMEND-ALL
Of the Green Wood,
And his jolly fellaweship — Robert Louis Stevenson

Make me proud today, Robmeister. Keep your hands to yourself and remember rule number one above all things.'
'Don't discuss politics.'
'No, the other one.'
Robbie nods. 'Don't eat glue.' He drops his chin. 'It's my weakness. — Jenny B. Jones

My uncle was the first one in my family to get a telephone. It was like going to the moon. He came running over to tell us, and we were so proud. A telephone! We didn't have to go to the candy store to phone any more. We went around telling everyone. But we didn't hear from my uncle for three days, so my father got worried. He said, Let's go over there. We got there, and my uncle was very depressed. I asked, What's the matter? He said, I got a telephone and nobody called me. He didn't give his number out - he didn't know that you had to! — Pat Cooper

In the early morning as dawn was just beginning to streak through the cabin windows, Jack was stirred awake by the soft sound of slightly off-key humming. He found Mel nestled into the crook of his arm, her breath tickling his chest. She was purring, humming, her lips moving slightly, as though singing. It might've troubled him if her expression had been sad or disturbed. But she was smiling. She snuggled closer, throwing a leg over his. And this sleepy little music, contented, drifted out of her. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd spent the entire night in bed with a woman. And already, he couldn't imagine waking up alone. He pulled her closer knowing he'd never been happier in his life. — Robyn Carr

Lesson Number One in controlling a man: find his weakness. Every man had one. — Rachel Firasek

Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home. — Stephen King

324This morning a splendid dawn passed over our house on its way to Kansas. This morning Kansas rolled out its sleep into a sunlight grandly announced, proclaimed throughout heaven--one more of the very finite number of days that this old prairie has been called Kansas, or Iowa. But it has all been one day, that first day. Light is constant, we just turn over in it. So every day is in fact the selfsame evening and morning. My grandfather's grave turned into the light, and the dew on his weedy little mortality patch was glorious — Marilynne Robinson

Whether at his desk or at the dinner table, when he talked about numbers, primes were most likely to make an appearance. At first, it was hard to see their appeal. They seemed so stubborn, resisting division by any number but one and themselves. Still, as we were swept up in the Professor's enthusiasm, we gradually came to understand his devotion, and the primes began to seem more real, as though we could reach out and touch them. — Yoko Ogawa

The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles ... when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones. — Flann O'Brien

To live with the work and the letters of James Joyce was an enormous privilege and a daunting education. Yes, I came to admire Joyce even more because he never ceased working, those words and the transubstantiation of words obsessed him. He was a broken man at the end of his life, unaware that Ulysses would be the number one book of the twentieth century and, for that matter, the twenty-first. — Edna O'Brien

Aomame knew that he worked for a corporation connected with oil. He was a specialist on capital investment in a number of Middle Eastern countries. According to the information she had been given, he was one of the more capable men in the field. She could see it in the way he carried himself. He came from a good family, earned a sizable income, and drove a new Jaguar. After a pampered childhood, he had gone to study abroad, spoke good English and French, and exuded self-confidence. He was the type who could not bear to be told what to do, or to be criticized, especially if the criticism came from a woman. He had no difficulty bossing others around, though, and cracking a few of his wife's ribs with a golf club was no problem at all. As far as he was concerned, the world revolved around him, and without him the earth didn't move at all. He could become furious - violently angry - if anyone interfered with what he was doing or contradicted him in any way. — Haruki Murakami

It is not always possible or even right for a man to make his wife number one in his life. This is due to the nature of his life. His number one responsibility is to provide the living. — Helen Andelin

he once tried to explain the war and the 18 million dead to Teket, who could not comprehend it, the number alone, let alone that many killed in one conflict. B said they never found the whole of his brother's body in Belgium. He said surely it is more civilized to kill one man every few months, hold up his head for all to behold, say his name, and return home for a feast than to slaughter nameless millions. — Lily King

Arf! Arf, arf, arf!"
Oh, Jesus, the Antichrist's barking was going to split open his head.
"Quiet, Tank," Grace said. "Toby, baby, grab him and put him in the laundry room, please. Anna, good, you're back. Get a phone in case we need to call nine-one-one."
"Got it," Anna said, sounding so unusually shaken that Josh did open his eyes. Look at that, Antichrist number two was worried about him. Nice change. — Jill Shalvis

In his searches, Schwall noticed something else, though at first he didn't know what to make of it: A surprisingly large number of the people pulled in by the big Wall Street banks to build the technology for high-frequency trading were Russians. "If you went to LinkedIn and looked at one of these Russian guys, you would see he was linked to all the other Russians," said Schwall. "I'd go to find Dmitri and I'd also find Misha and Vladimir and Tolstoy or whatever." The Russians came not from finance but from telecom, physics, medical research, university math departments, and a lot of other useful fields. The big Wall Street firms had become machines for turning analytically minded Russians into high-frequency traders. — Michael Lewis

Parker, who was six feet four with nothing to protect his bones from exposure to the weather but tough-looking leathery skin, was so skeptical that at one point I thought he was going to pass, but he finally conceded that the move might be undertaken without undue risk to juridical virtue, to his own reputation, or to his client's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. When all details had been settled and money passed - a dollar bill from Sarah to Parker as a token retainer - I got at the phone and dialed a number. — Rex Stout

You cannot ask women to marry you whom you barely know.'
'Why not?' he asked. Compatibility is not something one discovers after five encounters rather than one. One must make an educated guess.'
'That's just it: you know nothing of me!'
'Not so,' he said promptly. Number one, you're Scottish. Number two, you're Scottish. Number three -'
'I can guess,' she said.
'You're beautiful,' he finished, a fleeting smile crossing his face. — Eloisa James

None of our men are 'experts.' We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the 'expert' state of mind a great number of things become impossible. — Henry Ford

Shane looked down at the staked vamp at his feet. 'Claire?'
'Yes?'
'You staked a vampire with a number two pencil.'
'I didn't actually check the number.'
'Have I told you lately how freaking awesome you are?'
She tried to smile, but her heart was fluttering in her chest now, and not in a good way. 'Compliments later. We really need to get out of here and get to the car. Any ideas?'
'Find another pencil and I'll pin this one down, too,' Michael said.
'You know how weird that sounds, right?' Shane said. 'Right, never mind. Number two pencil, coming up. Why do I feel like we're taking a test? — Rachel Caine

Which was increased by the two guardsmen, who took sides with one of the loungers, and by the scissors-grinder, who was equally hot upon the other side. A blow was struck, and in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her carriage, was the centre of a little knot of flushed and struggling men, who struck savagely at each other with their fists and sticks. Holmes dashed into the crowd to protect the lady; but, just as he reached her, he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood running freely down his face. At his fall the guardsmen took to their heels in one direction and the loungers in the other, while a number of better dressed — Arthur Conan Doyle

I know from my own experience that there is much more to 'intelligence' than an IQ number. In fact, I hesitate to believe that any system could really reflect the complexity and uniqueness of one person's mind, or meaningfully describe the nature of his or her potential. — Daniel Tammet

And Flock Rule Number Two is, Don't argue with Max or you'll live to regret it." I spun and stomped out to the clearing, turning back for one last jab at Dylan. "And by the way, you clearly DON'T know me better than Fang does. Do you see Fang arguing with me? No, you do not."
Fang rolled his eyes. — James Patterson

Good," Pop slapped his thighs and pushed to his feet. "Number one job of a preacher. Know the Word. Live it, pray it, sing it. — Rachel Hauck

Wherever, therefore, any number of men so unite into one society, as to quit everyone his executive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to the public, there, and there only, is a political or civil society. [ ... ] Hence it is evident that absolute monarchy, which by some men [e.g., Hobbes] is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all. — John Locke

I wanted to tell them that, in Kabul, we snapped a tree branch and used it as a credit card. Hassan and I would take the wooden stick to the bread maker. He'd carve notches on our stick with his knife, one notch for each loaf of naan he'd pull for us from the tandoor's roaring flames. At the end of the month, my father paid him for the number of notches on the stick. That was it. No questions. No ID. — Khaled Hosseini

Johnny Depp, as far as I'm concerned, is number one. Of his generation, there's no one who can touch him. Some performers, today, it's like looking at holes in the air. — Christopher Lee

Today, far continents have become suburbs. Even the moon has somehow come closer. But for all that, the past has not lost its power, and if within a lifetime a man changes his skin an infinite number of times--almost as often as his suits--still he does not change his heart: he has but one. — Ilya Ehrenburg

Characteristic of a very great number of people, some of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch. Pyotr Alexandrovitch carried the business through vigorously, and was appointed, with Fyodor Pavlovitch, joint guardian of the child, who had a small property, a house and land, left him by his mother. Mitya did, in fact, pass into this cousin's keeping, but as the latter had no family of his own, and after securing the revenues of his estates was in haste to return at once to Paris, he left the boy in charge of one of his cousins, a lady living in Moscow. It came to pass that, settling permanently in Paris he, too, forgot the child, especially — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A small hole in his shirt revealed a gooey red blob right in the meaty part above his armpit, blood pouring from the wound. It hurt. It hurt bad. If he'd thought his headache downstairs had been tough, this was like three or four of those, all smashed into a coil of pain right there in his shoulder. And spreading through the rest of his body.
Newt was at his side, looking down with worried eyes.
"He shot me." It just came out, a new number one on the list of the dumbest things he'd ever said. The pain, like living metal staples running through his insides, pricking and scratching with their little sharp points. He felt his mind going dark for the second time that day. — James Dashner

I wonder what Tommy Morris would have had to say to all this number 6-iron, number 12-iron, number 28-iron stuff. He probably wouldn't have said anything, just made one of those strange Scottish noises at the back of his throat like someone gargling. — P.G. Wodehouse

He gave her his phone number, in a peculiar reversal of dating procedure. She might have considered kissing him, even after the horrible first date, but he just didn't seem to know what to do. However, Jeremy does have one outstanding quality. He likes her. And this quality in a person makes them infinitely interesting to the person who is being liked. — Steve Martin

Wyatt was, in fact, finding the Christian system suspect. Memory of his fourth birthday party still weighted in his mind. It had been planned cautiously by Aunt May, to the exact number of hats and favors and portions of cake. One guest, no friend to Wyatt (from a family "less fortunate than we are"), showed up with a staunchly party-bent brother. (Not only no friend: a week before he had challenged Wyatt through the fence behind the carriage barn with - Nyaa nyaa, suckinyerma's ti-it-ty ... ) Wyatt was taken to a dark corner, where he later reckoned all Good works were conceived, and told that it was the Christian thing to surrender his portion. So he entered his fifth year hatless among crepe-paper festoons, silent amid snapping crackers, empty of Christian love for the uninvited who asked him why he wasn't having any cake. — William Gaddis

This required abandoning the idea that there is a universal quantity called time that all clocks measure. Instead, everyone would have his own personal time. The clocks of two people would agree if they were at rest with respect to each other but not if they were moving. This has been confirmed by a number of experiments, including one in which an extremely accurate timepiece was flown around the world and then compared with one that had stayed in place. If you wanted to live longer, you could keep flying to the east so the speed of the plane added to the earth — Stephen Hawking

But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State. Most true. Seeing — Plato

Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I've actually got a new sorta-boyfriend and I suppose maybe I'll have shake-the-rafters, rattle-the-windows sex with him since I'll finally be legal and all."
"Eponine," Phil hissed. Maube I'd only said it for the reaction, because there was absolutely no way that would be happening withing the month. I could count the numbers of boys I'd merely kissed on one hand. I didn't even need a hand at all to number the guys I'd slept with. I figured the integer wasn't about to change any time soon, either.
"Obviously I'm kidding, Phil." His posture relaxed, only slightly. "We'll be quiet. — Megan Squires

Mozart's first work regarded today as a masterpiece, with its status confirmed by the number of recordings available, is his Piano Concerto No. 9, composed when he was twenty-one. That's certainly an early age, but we must remember that by then Wolfgang had been through eighteen years of extremely hard, expert training. — Geoff Colvin

Is something wrong, Lieutenant North?" "Beware of Carrington," he said. "Mr. Carrington was very kind," she said. "He made no untoward remarks." "He's already got you lined up in his mind as his next wife. He's buried one already." Her breath came fast, and spots of color lodged in her cheeks. "What happened to his other wife?" Surely she wasn't interested! "She died in childbirth." "Recently?" He dropped his gaze. "No," he muttered, struggling to maintain his temper. "About ten years ago." "The poor man," she murmured. She removed her hand from John's arm. "But I'm not interested in becoming wife number two." "I'm relieved to hear it," he said. She tipped her head. "Are you? Why would that concern you?" "He's much too old for you," he said. She smiled, and her dimple appeared. "Surely he's not more than fifty." "As I said. An old man. — Colleen Coble

Lou, honey, I'll buy you a new pair of shoes if you'll stop flashing your panties at everyone sitting across the room from us. You are wearing panties, right?
I glance up and across at Stefan. His words register a moment later and my head swivels toward the other side of the room. There are a number of people staring at me. One of them is Detective Terry Shay. Or I think it is. He's not looking directly at me. He's looking up my skirt — Ronda Thompson

For a day or two Fleury became quite active. He had his book about the advance of civilization in India to consider and this was one reason why he had taken an interest in the behaviour of the Collector. He asked a great number of questions and even bought a notebook to record pertinent information.
"Why, if the Indian people are happier under our rule," he asked a Treasury official, "do they not emigrate from those native states like Hyderabad which are so dreadfully misgoverned and come and live in
British India?"
"The apathy of the native is well known," replied the official stiffly. "He is not enterprising."
Fleury wrote down "apathy" in a flowery hand and then, after a moment's hesitation, added "not enterprising". — J.G. Farrell

Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one? — Plutarch

The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropiate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice. — Josef Muller-Brockmann

The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies. — William Faulkner

Whatever his secret was, I have learnt one secret too, and namely: that the soul is but a manner of being
not a constant state
that any soul may be yours, if you find and follow its undulations. The hereafter may be the full ability of consciously living in any chosen soul, in any number of souls, all of them unconscious of their interchangeable burden. — Vladimir Nabokov

Open on three," Minho said. "And guard lady, you try anything or run away, I guarantee one of us will get you. Thomas, you count off." The woman pulled out her key card but said nothing. "One," Thomas began. "Two." He paused, allowed himself a moment to suck in a breath, but before he could yell the last number an alarm started blaring and the lights went out. CHAPTER 14 Thomas blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the darkness. The alarm rang in shrill, deafening bursts. He sensed Minho stand up, then heard him shuffling about. "The guard's gone!" his friend shouted. "I can't find her! — James Dashner

He smiled against my cheek and kissed me again. "Talking with you would be much more enjoyable than talking with Talia, Lilly." His eyes scanned the floor by my feet. "She's paint by number; you're watercolor." Things like that, moments like those, how do you explain to other people that no one else in the world can make you feel this way? — Amber L. Johnson

Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life. — Bert V. Royal

Always preoccupied with his profound researches, the great Newton showed in the ordinary-affairs of life an absence of mind which has become proverbial. It is related that one day, wishing to find the number of seconds necessary for the boiling of an egg, he perceived, after waiting a minute, that he held the egg in his hand, and had placed his seconds watch (an instrument of great value on account of its mathematical precision) to boil!
This absence of mind reminds one of the mathematician Ampere, who one day, as he was going to his course of lectures, noticed a little pebble on the road; he picked it up, and examined with admiration the mottled veins. All at once the lecture which he ought to be attending to returned to his mind; he drew out his watch; perceiving that the hour approached, he hastily doubled his pace, carefully placed the pebble in his pocket, and threw his watch over the parapet of the Pont des Arts. — Camille Flammarion

The historian Major-General Sir David Stewart of Garth described them as an 'excellent, orderly regiment of well-behaved serviceable men, fit for any duty' and the novelist Sir Walter Scott used his journal to call them a 'regiment of Sutherland giants'. (One of their number was Samuel McDonald, a native of Lairg, who was seven feet four inches tall. Throughout the army he was known as 'Big Sam'.) — Trevor Royle

Do you know that two is an untouchable number too?" Finn said after several long minutes, his eyes on his hand.
"It is?"
He nodded slowly and traced the dots which now numbered six. "And six is what is known as a perfect number. The sum of its divisors - one, two, and three - all add up to six. The product of its divisors are also six."
"So what you're telling me, then, is together we are perfect and untouchable? — Amy Harmon

You would have to say his number one accomplishment has been to inspire a sense of confidence in the country. That confidence, that optimism, not only gives President Obama a political cushion, but it could have a real world economic impact. — George Stephanopoulos

The number-one job of the hedge-fund manager is not to make sure that you can retire with a smile on your face - it's for him to retire with a smile on his face. — Mark Cuban

Character has more effect than anything else. Let a number of loud-talking men take up a particular question, and one man of character, of known integrity and beauty of soul, will outweigh them all in his influence. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Newt spun, making her robe unfurl. "He's my familiar, bought and paid for. I can claim anything of his. Even his life." Al cleared his throat nervously. "That's good to know," he said lightly. "Important safety tip. Rachel, write that down somewhere as lesson number one. — Kim Harrison

The extrovert assumption is so woven into the fabric of our culture that an employee may suffer reprimands for keeping his door closed (that is, if he is one of the lucky ones who has a door), for not lunching with other staff members, or for missing the weekend golf game or any number of supposedly morale-boosting celebrations. Half. More than half of us don't want to play. We don't see the point. For us, an office potluck will not provide satisfying human contact - we'd much rather meet a friend for an intimate conversation (even if that friend is a coworker). For us, the gathering will not boost morale - and will probably leave us resentful that we stayed an extra hour to eat stale cookies and make small talk. For us, talking with coworkers does not benefit our work - it sidetracks us. — Laurie A. Helgoe

Sure I loved him - too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I'm number one in his life. I'm not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore. — Amy Tan

He smiled affably at the burglar, a burly fellow whom he continued to hold with one hand, as easily as if he had been a child. The entire household had been aroused, and a good number of them had joined in, shouting questions and brandishing various deadly instruments. The burglar glared wildly at Emerson, bare to the waist and bulging with muscle - at Gargery and his cudgel - at Selim, fingering a knife even longer than Nefret's - at assorted footmen armed with pokers, spits, and cleavers - and at the giant form of Daoud advancing purposefully toward him. 'It's a bleedin' army!' he gurgled. 'The lyin' barstard said you was some kind of professor! — Elizabeth Peters

He laughs like, what can you do? Laughs and spreads his palms as if revealing himself, Cortez the thief, as he is and always was, the person I always knew was there but never wanted to see. I am surprised, but why am I surprised? I decided at some point that he had made my road his road, given over to me the last two months of preimpact existence, because I was on my cockamamie hero's quest and required an able and agile sidekick - I reached that conclusion without thinking about it much and put the question aside. But everybody does everything for a reason. That's lesson number one of police work; it's lesson number one of life. — Ben H. Winters

In 1972, my idol Gordon Banks was seriously injured in a car accident and lost an eye. He was still England goalkeeper and the world's Number One. I was absolutely gutted for Banksie. His career was over prematurely. He did make a comeback in America for a time, but he said he felt like people were coming to watch a bit of a circus act: 'Roll up, roll up! The world's only one-eyed goalkeeper.' And so he retired from football for good. When he lost his eye, I wanted to give him one of mine, that's how much I thought of him. — Stephen Richards

He exists and we have four people who identified him and I know who he is, where he is, what his phone number is, everything about him that one needs. All I need is a criminal trial so I can have him subpoenaed. — William Pepper

Buster was not used to this experience, physical desire that was actually fulfilled. In his entire life, he had kissed five women. One of them had been his sister. This was, Buster understood, a terrible percentage. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd had sex and still have enough fingers left over to make complicated shadow puppets. — Kevin Wilson

Everybody clapped enthusiastically and Dr. Marx popped up from behind the podium, where he had been hiding all along. He was the hairiest man the pirates had ever seen. Several of the crew were actually worried for a moment that the Seaweed That Walked Like a Man had returned from one of their previous adventures to ambush them. His nose was hairy. His forehead was hairy. Even his hands were hairy. And his beard was a great bushy black number, which looked like he had sellotaped a bunch of cats to the bottom of his face and then frightened them with a loud noise. — Gideon Defoe

Every time a player goes out to ply his trade he's got to play from the ground up - from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be Number One in any business. But more important, you've got to play with you heart - with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second. — Vince Lombardi

I soon began to dream ... I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping ... I left my bed and wandered downstairs ... There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers, 'The President,' was his answer; 'he was killed by an assassin.' — Abraham Lincoln

I'm a situational writer. You give me a situation, like a writer gets in a car crash, breaks his leg, is kidnapped by his number-one fan, and is kept in a cabin and forced to write a book
everything else springs from there. You really don't have to work once you've had the idea. All you have to do is kind of take dictation from something inside. (from Parade Magazine interview, 5/26/13) — Stephen King

Did you know that in mathematics they determined what was real by what was not imaginary?" Finn's voice was just a soft rumble beneath my fingertips that had found his lips
"What?"
"When mathematicians came up with imaginary numbers, accepted them, defined them, they had to come up with a name for everything that wasn't imaginary. Everything that wasn't an imaginary number from that point on became a 'real' number."
What's an imaginary number?"
"The square root of negative one is an imaginary number."
"Is that all?"
"Any number that was once the square root of a negative number becomes an imaginary number. Square root of -4 becomes 2i, square root of -100 becomes 10i."
"Is infinity an imaginary number?"
"No."
"Is it a real number?"
"No. It isn't a number at all. It's a concept of endlessness, unreachableness.
"I knew it. See? You are just a figment of my imagination. — Amy Harmon

So what's it to be, Bear?"
Dev lifted his leg and gave a sarcastic slap to his thigh.
"By golly, I'll take door number two, Bob. You know the one that calls for straight suicide with a side of mutilation and pain? Sign my hairy ass up for that and don't be late. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You cannot imagine, to give you another example, that you may have, one day, a prime minister (it would go against my modesty to breathe his name) who, one day, after announcing in Parliament, in a cool, impassive voice, that, as the result of a number of carefully thought out diplomatic manoeuvres he has refrained from discussing before (for he is not a man of many words), he has succeeded in annexing Britain as an ordinary colony of Hungary, and that he is taking this opportunity to apprise the House of the fact; - Well, as I say, after explaining this in a cool and impassive tone, ignoring the shouting, jubilant Members who want to carry him round on their shoulders, suddenly he takes up a fencing posture and, right there, on the premier's rostrum, employing a formidable, hitherto unknown jujitsu hold, floors the Australian world wrestling champion whom the British opposition treacherously hid under the rostrum in order to assassinate the greatest European. — Frigyes Karinthy

Who wouldn't admire the gall of a fellow brings a machine gun and a peck of hired killers to his own goddamn trial? Who wouldn't admire a fellow never leaves a trail of evidence? That's got this far in the world and galled so many folks and killed twice that number and cheated the rest, all without being blowed to itty bitty pieces or hanged by his goddamn neck or succumbing to one of countless infirmities he seems to collect like a goddamn hobby, hell yeah I admire the son-of-a-bitch. — Tom Franklin

After all, you're his number one fan. — Stephen King