It's Almost Over Quotes & Sayings

Now take a look at the way the Drug War is conducted over the past 40 years. It goes back farther, but start from 40 years ago: There's very little spent on prevention and treatment. There's a lot on policing, a ton of stuff on border control and a lot on out-of-country operations. And the effect on the availability of drugs is almost undetectable; drug prices don't change on measures of availability. So there are two possibilities: Either those conducting the Drug War are lunatics, or they have another purpose. — Noam Chomsky

Memories had come back to Thomas on several occasions. The Changing, the dreams he'd had since, fleeting glimpses here and there, like quick lightning strikes in his mind. And right now, listening to the white-suited man talk, it felt as if he were standing on a cliff and all the answers were just about to float up from the depths for him to see in their entirety. The urge to grasp those answers was almost too strong to keep at bay.
But he was still wary. He knew he'd been a part of it all, had helped design the Maze, had taken over after the original Creators died and kept the program going with new recruits. "I remember enough to be ashamed of myself," he admitted. "But living through this kind of abuse is a lot different than planning it. It's just not right. — James Dashner

Why do some trees stay green while others change their color?"

"Certain trees need to show off, dear. I'm sure that my big brother could explain why it happens. Dahlaine loves to explain things, and he can be very tedious about it. I prefer simpler answers. The trees are sad because summer's almost over. — David Eddings

It's not enough to have a few women's studies courses. Why is it more important to study Paul Revere's midnight ride than it is Susan B. Anthony's 50-year effort to transform the face of America for women? When you're in school, most of the events you study are about men. Men's activities lauded and repeated over and over. What about us? What about commemorating the decades-long struggle for suffrage? Why don't we hear those stories over and over and over again. It's almost inconceivable for men to understand what it would be like to live without that constant valorization. — Judy Chicago

It was so stupid, and random, but at that second, with the morning sun hitting her auburn hair, and her huge brown eyes fixed on him, the lock flew off the "do-not-allow-yourself-to-even-think-about-it" portion of his brain, and every feeling he ever had for her - feelings he never even realized he had for her - flooded over him like a tidal wave. Love, tenderness, desire - it hit him so hard he had to excuse himself, go to the men's room, rest his forehead against the cool metal of the bathroom stall, breathing heavily, wondering what the hell had just happened. It left him exhausted and spent, as if he'd just run a hundred miles.
And almost a year later, he was still exhausted, spent, frustrated ... and madly in love. — Claire Matthews

might almost be over. That's when it happens. There's a rumbling sound that is low at first but begins to build in volume. The tunnel trembles slightly. All the fighting stops immediately; people get to their feet, look around. Mark's doing the same, trying to find the source of the noise. He's still holding Trina's hand. "What is that?" she shouts. Mark shakes his head, keeps sweeping his gaze around the tunnel. The floor vibrates below his feet and the rumbling sound gets louder, becomes an outright roar. His eyes fall upon the stairs that lead up from the subtrans concourse just as the screams erupt - countless, countless screams and the blur of panicked movement in the crowd. A monstrous wall of filthy water is pouring down the wide steps. — James Dashner

It's no secret to any woman that men turn into big babies when they are sick. Jake got the flu last year, and Rose almost strangled him before it was over. A woman can work twelve hours with PMS and a heavy flow and not complain; men can stub their toe and be bedbound for a month. — Sydney Landon

I've never been good at writing letters, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not able to make myself clear.
I've been thinking about you constantly since I left, wondering why the journey I'm on seemed to have led through you. I know my journey's not over yet, and that life is a winding path, but I can only hope it somehow circles back to the place I belong.
That's how I think of it now. I belong with you.
It is almost as if a part of you is with me. I want to believe that's true. No, change that - I know it's true. Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be, and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again. It was you, that I had been looking for all along. And it's you who is with me now.
I realize that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. In the short time we spent together, we had what most people can only dream about, and I'm counting the days until I can see you again. Never forget how much I love you. — Unknown

In that case, hell, I'll even spring for the coffee. Unless you're some kind of damned tea-drinking Englishman, in which case you can buy your own dirty leafy water."
"Drink tea in America?" Jeremy's eyebrow twitched upwards in disbelief. "I'm not that sort of masochist. Coffee, at least, has the benefit of being horrible the world over, so it doesn't matter where you get it."
Simon eyed him narrowly. "And to think I was almost not hating you."
Jeremy blinked, feigning confusion. "Goodness. Did I say something wrong? — M. Chandler

Are you in the car that's almost caused three accidents on North Vance?" Hannah asked. "Because I'm following you with my lights flashing, and whoever's driving isn't pulling over."
"Let him go," Claire said. "Trust me. You aren't going to get him to stop."
"Oh, God. It's Myrnin, isn't it?"
"Tell that police lady to stop chasing me," Myrnin said, annoyed, from the front seat. "Really, I'm not THAT bad at this. — Rachel Caine

In. Long inhale. Out. Low snort. In. long inhale. Out. Low snort.

Oh God. If he keeps breathing like this, I may just pick up my pillow and smother him. I can almost hear myself in court testifying, "The breathing, your honor. He just wouldn't stop. In. Out. In. Out. Over and over. Driving me crazy. I just had to end it." Hell, even I know that defense won't work. Not unless the judge is a woman who's been married for over five years. Then maybe I'd probably have a shot. — K.M. Jackson

We bow to the inevitable. We're not wheat, we're buckwheat! When a storm comes along it flattens ripe wheat because it's dry and can't bend with the wind. But ripe buckwheat's got sap in it and it bends. And when the wind has passed, it springs up almost as straight and strong as before. We aren't a stiff-necked tribe. We're mighty limber when a hard wind's blowing, because we know it pays to be limber. When trouble comes we bow to the inevitable without any mouthing, and we work and we smile and we bide our time. And we play along with lesser folks and we take what we can get from them. And when we're strong enough, we kick the folks whose necks we've climbed over. That, my child, is the secret of the survival. — Margaret Mitchell

Clary shut her eyes. You didn't say no to an angel, no matter what it had in mind. Her heart pounding, she sat floating in the darkness behind her eyelids, resolutely trying not to think of Jace. But his face appear against the blank screen of her closed eyelids anyway - not smiling at her but looking sidelong, and she could see the scar at his temple, the uneven curl at the corner of his mouth, and the silver line on his throat where Simon had bitten him - all the marks and flaws and imperfections that made up the person she loved most in the world. Jace. A bright light lit her vision to scarlet, and she fell back against the sand, wondering if she was going to pass out - or maybe she was dying - but she didn't want to die, not now that she could see Jace's face so clearly in front of her. She could almost hear his voice, too, saying her name, the way he'd whispered it at Renwick's, over and over again. Clary. Clary. Clary.
"Clary," Jace said. "Open your eyes. — Cassandra Clare

It meant that when she saw him for the first time in every life,Daniel was already in love with her. Every time. And always had been. And every time, she had to fall in love with him from scratch.He could never pressure her or push her into loving him. He had to win her anew each time. Daniel's love for her was one long, uninterrupted stream.It was the purest form of love there was,purer even than the love Luce returned. His love flowed without breaking,without stopping. Whereas Luce's love was wiped clean with every death, Daniel's grew over time, across all eternity. How powerfully strong must it be by now? Hundreds of love stacked one on top of the other? It was almost too massive for Luce to comprehend. He loved her that much,and yet in every lifetime,over and over again,he had to wait for her to catch up. — Lauren Kate

The use of 'conspiracy theory' as a derogatory - as an epithet almost - is something the propagandists have perfected over the decades, and it's a useful tool for eliminating articulate dissent and other points of view, and information that might be inconvenient for a policy agenda. — Chris Sanders

But in a way it's like looking at old photographs of yourself. There comes a point at which the record needs to be updated, because you've shed too many links with what you were. He doesn't quite know how it happened; all he knows is that he doesn't recognize himself in those stories any more, though he remembers the bursting feeling of writing them, something in himself massing and pushing irresistibly to be born. He hasn't had that feeling since; he almost thinks that to remain a writer he'd have to become one all over again, when he might just easily become an astronaut, or a farmer. It's as if he can't quite remember what drove him into words in the first place, all those years before, yet words are what he still deals in. I suppose it's a bit like marriage, he said. You build a whole structure on a period of intensity that's never repeated. It's the basis of your faith and sometimes you doubt it, but you never renounce it because too much of your life stands on that ground. — Rachel Cusk

This isn't coffee," I accused immediately as the rich smell of chocolate met my nose, making me almost want to groan. Okay, I totally wanted to groan. Just not in front of him. Fine, I absolutely wanted to groan in front of him. But in a private setting with his hands and mouth all over me.

"Figured you needed a pick-me-up."

"You told me you wouldn't give me something like this again. Not even if I begged," I reminded him.

"Well, it's made with water, not full-fat milk and there is only a tiny bit of whipped cream," he said, casual as could be. Which was why I took a sip as he leaned across the counter toward me, not thinking anything of it. Until he went ahead and added in a voice low enough that only the two of us could hear, "And the next time you beg me for something, Maddy, it's gonna be my cock."

I nearly choked to death.

And he just casually walked away, wiping the counter. — Jessica Gadziala

Hell, they'd say in the country club locker room, you know how Milt's getting his. Everybody knew, bearing testimony to the fact that suburban vice, like a peeling nose, is almost impossible to conceal. It went all over town, this talk, like a swarm of bees, settling down lazily on polite afternoon sun porches to rise once more and settle down again with a busy murmur among cautious ladylike foursomes on the golf course, buzzing pleasurably there amid ladylike whacks of the golf ball and cautious pullings-down of panties which bound too tightly. Everybody knew about their affair and everybody talked about it, and because of some haunting inborn squeamishness it would not have relieved Loftis to know that nobody particularly cared. — William Styron

You dream about the Olympics for so long and you have that one day, then it's over, and when you don't run well there is this huge letdown. It took me years to deal with that. I feel like I almost had to cleanse myself of that experience. — Ryan Hall

And Big Night, I think by the end the brothers find that balance, when they touch each other on the shoulder over breakfast and it's understood that what should never have driven them apart almost drove them apart. I think that's a true moment. — Tony Shalhoub

The whole issue was almost unbelievably meaningless and small. He thought about the word "meaning" and tried to summon up his baby's face without looking at the photo, but all he could get was the heft of a full diaper and the plastic mobile over his crib turning in the breeze that the box fan in the doorway made. He imagined that the clock's second hand possessed awareness and knew that it was a second hand and that its job was to go around and around inside a circle of numbers forever at the same slow, unvarying machinelike rate, going no place it hadn't already been a million times before, and imagining the second hand was so awful it made his breath catch in his throat, and he looked quickly around to see if any of the examiners near him had heard it or were looking at him. — David Foster Wallace

Atira! Heath!" I hugged Atira first, then threw myself into Heath's arms. But I pulled back quickly. "Heath! Your eye! What happened?"

His eye was black, with deep purple bruises and swelling all around. It was almost completely swollen shut.

Heath grimaced. "Nothing, Lara." He glanced over at Atira, who glared right back at him.

"Next time, you will not get between a warrior of the Plains and her enemy." Atira snapped, clearly unsympathetic.

"Oh, there's a truth that needs telling!" Simus crowed. — Elizabeth Vaughan

When you're twenty, love is like a fever, it makes you almost delirious. When it's over you can hardly remember how it happened ... Fire in the blood, how quickly it burns itself out. — Irene Nemirovsky

Excuse me.
Nine hours ago, I broke off the single most pointlessly agonizing one-way relationship of my young life.
It was a thin slice of hell, and now it is over.. He's not mine. He never will be mine, and I've thrown away three years of my life pining and hoping. Well, not anymore, and I need to get him out of my system. I've given the matter serious thought, and all I want right now is for some total stranger to nail me to a mattress for the next fourteen hours. I will almost certainly cry all over you and call you by his name, but I assure you that my sexual frustration has built to such a fever peak that I will fuck you dry. What do you say?"
"whine — Carla Speed McNeil

But as he plodded along a vague and almost hallucinatory pall hazed over his mind; he found himself at one point, with no notion of how it could be, a step from an almost certain fatal cliffside fall - falling humiliatingly and helplessly, he thought; on and on, with no one even to witness it. Here there existed no one to record his or anyone else's degradation, and any courage or pride which might manifest itself here at the end would go unmarked: the dead stones, the dust-stricken weeds dry and dying, perceived nothing, recollected nothing, about him or themselves. — Philip K. Dick

Sometimes, it is almost frightening to realise how poorly most people know themselves; it seems to put one at an almost priestly advantage over people's souls. — James Wood

Being offended by things is the world's big hobby at the moment. It's almost taken over from wearing goatee beards. — Douglas Adams

Stop overthinking, Tessie, just enjoy the moment." He winks and dips his head so that our foreheads are pressed together intimately along with our bodies. "What . . ." I start but he places a finger over my lips. "Enjoy the moment," he repeats. I do listen to him this time. Cole doesn't move his face even an inch because if he did, then our lips would definitely brush up and the idea terrifies me, almost as much as it strangely seems to exhilarate me. I look into his eyes trying to work out what secrets lie in their sapphire-like depths. The distance between us is becoming almost imaginary and there's a thin line we need to cross before everything changes. — Blair Holden

You should have had the decency to die when you needed to."
"Sorry," I admitted. "I've been going through a bit of a rebellious streak. I swear it's almost over. — Ally Carter

It's like you're screaming but no one can hear. You almost feel ashamed that someone could be that important, that without them, you feel like nothing. No one will ever understand how much it hurts. You feel hopeless, like nothing can save you. And when it's over and it's gone, you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back so you can have the good. — Rihanna

It's over," Keelie said.
Too bad. But I want you to know, I will always love you."
She narrowed her eyes and said, "When you look at me and say that, are you thinking of Dolly Parton or Whitney Houston?"
Burt Reynolds," he said.
She nearly spit out her coffee when she laughed, then she said, "That almost makes me want to try again. — Becky Cochrane

She removed the shining black disk from its sleeve, holding it by the edges. After she placed it on the turntable and set the arm into motion, she adjusted the volume on the amplifier, flooding the room with sound. She closed her eyes and began to sway to the music. She could almost feel Clive's arms guiding her, as he had done so many times over the course of their lives together.
(from Independence Day) — Ken Doyle

Obsession is so extreme and so hard to imagine with the rational mind that it has a science-fiction-like quality to it-it's almost as if the obsessed one has been taken over by a replica, a pod, a facsimile of the rational person. — Susan Cheever

My sound is constantly progressing and maturing. It's hard with all the songs that I have written over the years to compile them all into one album. It's almost impossible to categorize them into one genre. — Asher Monroe

Adam said, "Just thinking." And he was thinking with amazement, Why, I'm not afraid of my
brother! I used to be scared to death of him, and I'm not any more. Wonder why not? Could it be the
army? Or the chain gang? Could it be Father's death? Maybe - but I don't understand it. With the lack
of fear, he knew he could say anything he wanted to, whereas before he had picked over his words to
avoid trouble. It was a good feeling he had, almost as though he himself had been dead and
resurrected. — John Steinbeck

SINCE ATLANTA, SHE had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical. Over her breakfast coffee, she watched the last of Georgia's hills recede and the red earth appear, and with it tin-roofed houses set in the middle of swept yards, and in the yards the inevitable verbena grew, surrounded by whitewashed tires. — Harper Lee

I remember being stunned at the New York skyline as I drove over this big freeway, coming across the flats in Seacaucus. All of a sudden it was looming up in front of me and I almost lost control of the car. I thought it was a vision. — Hunter S. Thompson

I've learned over time that every editor has told me when you're getting that much hate, you don't talk about it. You just kind of don't give it oxygen and let it go away. It's almost - not always, but almost - always the best policy. — Joel Stein

Keesha looked at me for a long time. "I did leave you alone. We all did. But you didn't get better. You didn't stop. You're still doin' all your weird shit. And I think it's time to stop."
"You think it's time to stop!" I exploded, and lunged at her with my hands outstretched. I pushed her real hard. She almost fell down. "I don't care what time you think it is!" I screamed. "Do you think I want to do this! Do you think I like it?"
"You pushed me!"
"Yeah. So what?"
"You're so afraid of being interrupted that you pushed me!"
"I'm not scared of being interrupted, you jerk! I'm ... I'm scared ... I'm scared of being." I crumpled into a ball and sat down where I was standing. I sat on a crack. Unevenly.
"Who are you anymore, Tara?"
Tears spilled over my frozen lashes and disappeared across my cheekbones. I had never felt so defeated. "I don't know. — Terry Spencer Hesser

I think about how many people I know who try to brush off the fact that their 'agenda' might be something that exists. That it might be to tell a story that isn't just the same as everyone else's. The very idea of being accused of an agenda in itself: what a horrifying prospect. The idea that people might want to be heard! It was as if Karla, right there, had screamed at the top of her voice over almost everyone in the games industry. I have an agenda. I have a fucking agenda. I imagine her standing in front of an audience made up of everyone in attendance at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and pointing at people: 'YOU have an agenda. And YOU have an agenda. And YOU have one too. I HAVE A FUCKING AGENDA. — Cara Ellison

I end up improvising in almost everything to some degree, 'cause it's often necessary on movies. The script is one thing, and it's this kind of theory of what you're going to do, and then you get there on the day and you realize, "Oh, the script is not appropriate to this room, the door's over here." — John C. Reilly

I'm about to object when he turns his head and takes my thumb into his mouth instead. He gnaws at it all gentle, teeth and tongue teasing over my fingerprint, before he slides it further so that my hand winds up cupping his jaw. His mouth is hot and wet and when he sucks softly, I get an unexpected, almost electric pulse that shoots straight to my groin; it's damned sexy what he's doing. — Bey Deckard

We're not going to make it, I said.
The words caught in my throat, choking me. What was it Leslie had said to me when we were discussing Shannon's and Antoinetta's disappearance? 'You're beginning to sound like one of the characters in your books, Adam.' She'd been right. If this were a novel my heroes would have arrived just in the nick of time and saved the day. But real life didn't work like that. Real life had no happy endings. Despite our best efforts, despite my love for Tara [his wife] and my determination to protect her, and after everything we'd been through at the LeHorn house, fate conspired against us. We were still nine or ten miles from home, and night was almost upon us. By the time we got there it would already be too late. I fought back tears. I had the urge just to lie down in the middle of the road and let the next car run over me. — Brian Keene

Google controls two-thirds of the US search market. Almost three-quarters of all Internet users have Facebook accounts. Amazon controls about 30% of the US book market, and 70% of the e-book market. Comcast owns about 25% of the US broadband market. These companies have enormous power and control over us simply because of their economic position. They all collect and use our data to increase their market dominance and profitability. When eBay first started, it was easy for buyers and sellers to communicate outside of the eBay system because people's e-mail addresses were largely public. In 2001, eBay started hiding e-mail addresses; in 2011, it banned e-mail addresses and links in listings; and in 2012, it banned them from user-to-user communications. All of these moves served to position eBay as a powerful intermediary by making it harder for buyers and sellers to take a relationship established inside of eBay and move it outside of eBay. — Bruce Schneier

As I reach the grand foyer, I see Jean-Baptiste and Gaspard step through the front door.
"You're here!" I cry.
"I had planned on taking a couple more hours to rest up," Gaspard explains with a grin, "however, we received this almost indecipherable text message on our mobile telephone ... "
Jean-Baptiste holds up his cell phone like it's a piece of alien machinery. "And I quote, 'Dudes, it's going down now. Get your sorry asses over here stat.' With such an eloquent request, how could we resist?" he remarks drily. But there is a ghost of a smile at the edge of his lips, and I know that he and Gaspard wouldn't miss this for anything in the world. — Amy Plum

Xas sighed. "But I don't want to talk about God. Why do I? Sometimes I feel God is all over me like a pollen and I go about pollinating things with God."
Sobran opened his eyes and Xas smiled at him. Soban said, "I did think that you talked about God to persuade me you weren't evil. But I've decided that, for you, everything is somehow to the glory of God, whether you like it or not."
"I feel that, yes. My imagination was first formed in God's glory. But I think God didn't make the world, so I think my feelings are mistaken."
This was the heresy for which Xas was thrown out of Heaven. Sobran was happy it had finally appeared. It was like a clearing. Sobran could almost see this clearing - a silent, sunny, green space into which not a thing was falling, not even the call of a cuckoo. Xas thought the world was like this, an empty clearing into which God had wandered. — Elizabeth Knox

Nicole did what she'd been taught since she was little and her parents had moved into an all-white neighborhood: She smiled and made herself as friendly and non threatening as possible. Its what she did when she met the parents of her friends. There was always that split second- something almost felt rather than seen- when the parents' faces would register a tiny shock, a palpable discomfort with Nicole's 'otherness.' And Nicole would smile wide and say how nice it was to come over. She would call the parents Mr. or Mrs., never by their first names. Their suspicion would ebb away, replaced by an unspoken but nonetheless palpable pride in her 'good breeding,' for which they should take no credit but did anyway. Nicole could never quite relax in these homes. She'd spend the evening perched on the edge of the couch, ready to make a quick getaway. — Libba Bray

The other, somewhat subtler point, was that interface is very important. Sure, the MGB was a lousy car in almost every way that counted: balky, unreliable, underpowered. But it was fun to drive. It was responsive. Every pebble on the road was felt in the bones, every nuance in the pavement transmitted instantly to the driver's hands. He could listen to the engine and tell what was wrong with it. The steering responded immediately to commands from his hands. To us passengers it was a pointless exercise in going nowhere--about as interesting as peering over someone's shoulder while he punches numbers into a spreadsheet. But to the driver it was an experience. For a short time he was extending his body and his senses into a larger realm, and doing things that he couldn't do unassisted. — Neal Stephenson

It had been a long fifteen years. So much had changed in both their lives. Both hearts somehow sadly hardened. "Let us just make it through," Claire whispered her desperate plea. It was her only prayer, one she said over and over again. An almost cynical laugh erupted out of her as she turned one last time to say goodbye to her father's tombstone. That was her prayer? That was all she could come up with to say to God? Then so be it. — Laura Aranda

My dad died, I write. almost a year ago. Car accident. My hand is shaking; my eyes sting and fill. I add Not his fault before pushing the notebook and pen back across the table, wiping a hand across my cheeks.
As he reads, my impulse is to reach out, grab the notebook, run outside, dump it in the trash, bury it in the snow, throw it under the wheels of a passing car - something, something, so I can go back fifteen seconds when this part ofme was still shut away and private. Then I look at Ravi's face again, and the normally white white whites of his eyes are pink. This causes major disruption to my ability to control the flow of my own tears. I see myself when I look at him right now: he's reflecting my sadness, my broken heart, back to me.
He takes the pe, writes, and slides it over. You'd think it's something epic from the way it levels my heart. It isn't.
I'm really sorry, Jill.
Four little words. — Sara Zarr

Our first youth is of no value; for we are never conscious of it, until after it is gone. But sometimes
always, I suspect, unless one is exceedingly unfortunate
there comes a sense of second youth, gushing out of the heart's joy at being in love; or possibly, it may come to crown some other grand festival in life, if any other such there be. This bemoaning of one's self ... over the first, careless, shallow gayety of youth departed, and this profound happiness at youth regained,
so much deeper and richer than that we lost,
are essential to the soul's development. In some cases, the two states come almost simultaneously, and mingle the sadness and the rapture in one mysterious emotion. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ohhhhh Je-sus you're wet. Oh fuck, you're so wet, baby. Are you serious with this? It's all over your legs."
She blurted the words without thinking.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Before trying to do something mitigating, like closing her legs. Doing so proved hard, however, with him almost between them and his big hands refusing to move from her thighs.
And he looked so ... so incredulous too.
"Don't be sorry. Don't. You should know it's hot as fuck that you're like this. Seriously." He paused. Seemed to consider, before continuing. "You always like this? — Charlotte Stein

Let me explain. Say you have an eating disorder like anorexia - you've probably been hiding the condition for a long time. After months or years, you face your demons, with or without therapy, you admit you're ill and eventually decide you want to recover. But this is only half the battle. Once start to eat again, once you begin to gain weight, it's unbelievably stressful. Having gone from absolute control over every calorie which goes into your mouth, you're now being forced to double, maybe even triple that amount. You're being forced to consume unsafe substances like butter, oil, nuts. Every mouthful takes a colossal effort. In your rigid anorexic mindset, not being underweight equates to being overweight. Not being hungry equates to greed. Giving up an eating disorder is frightening. It is almost impossible to imagine that the process will ever be ok. — Emma Woolf

I want you to learn that if you don't keep picking at old wounds, over time they will eventually heal. Oh sure, sometimes they will leave a nasty, jagged scar, but at least it won't hurt like it did anymore, and if you don't look at it, sometimes you can almost forget it's there. — K. Martin Beckner

He closed his eyes. Swiftly like a predator, the vision of his death struck. This time it would not be denied.
The white ground, black rocks, and red drops of his heart's blood growing on the ground like blooming roses. He lost himself in the sensation of liquid warmth flowing between his fingers.
When he could finally see again, he found himself kneeling on the floor, shoulders hunched. That damned scene hung like an albatross around his neck, until he almost wished it would go ahead and happen, just so that he could get it the fuck over with.
He had carried that albatross for almost two hundred damn years - exactly from the moment when he had responded to a damsel in distress and had embroiled himself in another man's curse. — Thea Harrison

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. — Carl Sagan

It would probably never have occurred to him that his own difficulties with the world were akin to those suffered by women-- as with the men's committee meetings held over his head, almost as if he were not there, and the way people took little notice of what he had said or written, but remained obsessed by details of manners or appearance. Women had to learn to compensate for these indignities by making a special effort, but Alan Turing made no such attempt. He expected the male world to work for him, and was baffled when it did not. — Andrew Hodges

The Scripture was given to us to teach and to uplift. To provide a path to God. Occasionally a person fixates on a certain portion, a portion that many of us would consider narrative history
such as the book of Daniel. It is a record of Daniel's experience in exile, in the court of Babylon. We can see God's sovereignty over kings, in this case Nebuchadnezzar." Tate jingled the change in his pocket, unsure where Mitch was headed. "In addition to the historical aspects, there are spiritual lessons to be found within this portion of the Scripture
God's faithfulness to his people and his omnipotence." "But ... " "But when someone fixates on one portion versus the Scripture as a whole, confusion sets in. They pick and choose certain words and use them to justify almost any action." Tate hesitated, then asked, "Even murder?" "Especially murder. — Vannetta Chapman

I look at Jane for a long time and a slow smile creeps over her face. Her whole face changes when she smiles - this eyebrow-lifting, perfect-teeth-showing, eye-crinkling smile I've either never seen or never noticed. She becomes pretty so suddenly that it's almost like a magic trick — John Green

I can see through almost any scam, especially one perpetrated by the federal government. I can see through it ... they can't pull the wool over my eyes, it's absolutely freakin' impossible to pull the wool over my eyes about the government. — Gary Coleman

Kaylee, this means something to me." His hands trailed down my arms to cup my elbows, and his gaze held mine. "With any
luck, we're going to have millions of moments over the course of eternity, and I plan to love every one of them. But we'll never
have this moment again, and this is very important to me." The twists of blue in his eyes coiled so tightly the color was almost gone,
lost among pale shades of a need so deep it couldn't possibly be captured in a kiss, or a touch. "I need to know that this is important
to you, too. I need to know that this isn't like last time. That you're not doing this just so you can say you've done it. Because that's
not good enough for me. That's not good enough for us. — Rachel Vincent

I tried to smile back, but I was trying not to stare at the ribbon of skin that was showing beneath his T-shirt as he bent over. As usual, my mouth went a little dry and my breathing sped up, and that weird, almost sad feeling settled in my stomach. I never thought I'd be glad to hear Vandy's braying voice, but when she shouted, 'All right! That's it for today!' I could have kissed her.
Well, on second thought, no. Maybe a firm handshake. — Rachel Hawkins

An odd by-product of my loss is that I'm aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they'll 'say something about it' or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don't. Some funk it altogether. R. has been avoiding me for a week. I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the bar as quickly as they decently can. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers. — C.S. Lewis

You just couldn't wait to get me naked, could you, Princess?" Loki asked tiredly. I started to pull my hand back, but he put his own hand over it, keeping it in place.
"No, I - I was checking for wounds," I stumbled. I wouldn't meet his gaze.
"I'm sure." He moved his thumb, almost caressing my hand, until it hit my ring. "What's that?" He tried to sit up to see it, so I lifted my hand, showing him the emerald-encrusted oval on my finger. "Is that a wedding ring?"
"No, engagement." I lowered my hand, resting it on the bed next to him. "I'm not married yet."
"I'm not too late, then." He smiled and settled back in the bed.
"Too late for what?" I asked.
"To stop you, of course." Still smiling, he closed his eyes. — Amanda Hocking

Guess what?" she said to us. "Someone chopped down a tree in Mrs. Spencer's garden last night."

I stared at her incredulously for a moment. Not a much-loved family member, then, not a nuclear power plant. My eyes went to Florence's face, which was wet with tears. Was she really crying over Mr. Snuggles?

Unobtrusively, I slipped past Lottie and over to the coffee machine, put the biggest cup I could find under it, and pressed the cappuccino button. Twice.

"A tree? But why?" asked Mia with a perfectly judged mixture of curiosity and mild surprise.

"No one knows," said Lottie. "But Mrs. Spencer has already called in Scotland Yard. It was a very valuable tree."

I almost laughed out loud. Yes, sure. I bet they had a special gardening squad to investigate such cases. Scotland Front Yard. Good day, my name is Inspector Griffin and I'm looking into the murder of Mr. Snuggles. — Kerstin Gier

I hope you were going to come pry your sister off my back," Paca clips as Rayna swims up. "She's quite rude."
Galen throws Rayna a look, to which she lifts her chin. "Paca and her pudgy father over there are full of whale dung," Rayna informs her brothers.
"Rayna," Grom barks. "Mind your manners."
Rayna lifts her chin even higher. Here we go. "Paca is a fraud, Grom," she says. "You can't mate with her. Sorry to ruin your ceremony. Let's go, Galen."
Paca gasps as Jagen swims up to the party, almost stuttering in his fury. "You little ... little stonefish! How dare you insult my daughter?"
Galen grabs Rayna's arm. "What did you do?" he hisses.
She jerks her arm away and gives him a superior look. "If Paca has the Gift of Poseidon, I have the Gift of Triton. Don't ask me what it is though, because I don't have a clue."
"Rayna, enough!" Grom says, grabbing her other arm. "Apologize. Right now."
"Apologize for what? Telling the truth? Sorry, not feeling it. — Anna Banks

Because you have no survival instinct, Grace. You're like a tank, you just chug along< thinking nothing can stop you, until you meet up with a bigger tank. Are you sure you want to go out with someone with that kind of history?" mom seemed to warm her theory. " he couldhave a psychotic break. I read that people get those when they're twenty-eight. he could be almost normal and then suddenly go slasher. I mean, you know I've never told you what to do with your life before now. But what if-I told you not to see him?"
I hadn't been expecting that. My voice was brittle. "I would say that by virtue of your not acting parental up to this point, you've relinquished your abiblity to wield any power now. Sam and I are together. It's not an option."
Mom threw her hands up as if trying to stop the Grace-tank from running over her. "Okay. Fine. Just be careful, okay? Whatever. I'm going to get a drink."
And just like that her parental engergies were expendede. — Maggie Stiefvater

Remember those dogs I was talking about? The cues? While I was watching TV, I missed a few. Take a look:
Steven is smiling, almost laughing. After all the punishment he's received from my sister over the years, he's developed quite the sadistic streak when it comes to other people getting their asses handed to them.
Then there's Matthew. God only knows what kind of sick and depraved penalties Delores has inflicted on that poor bastard, because he just looks scared.
Kate, on the other hand, is staring at my hand like it's a cockroach. That she wants to squash. And then she gets an idea - a wonderful, awful idea. If you look hard enough, you can see the light bulb go on above her head. She smiles and leaves the room.
I missed all this the first time. — Emma Chase

You know, I think everybody I've seen has come from some other therapy, and almost invariably it's very much the same thing: the therapist is too disinterested, a little too aloof, a little too inactive. They're not really interested in the person, he doesn't relate to the person. All these things I've written so much about. That's why I've made such a practice really, over and over to hammer home the point of self-revelation and being more of yourself and showing yourself. Every book I write I want to get that in there. — Irvin D. Yalom

That tank," Bucktooth pointed at the gas gauge on the dashboard of the decidedly unfredneck-like '65 Dodge Dart, "is almost empty. We ain't going much farther."
"Indeed it is." A solemn Phosphate agreed. "I suggest we stop the car and weigh our options."
"What options?" Professor Buckley asked. "Why do-that is- we've been traveling up and down this path for over an hour without seeing anyone or encountering anything. Even the doughnut shop cannot be relocated. In light of this, what options do we have?"
It was difficult to argue with the ex-history teacher's typically alarmist position. Brisbane's reliable old automobile had indeed been expending its remaining fuel supply in what seemed to be a hopeless effort to exit the unnamed dirt path. After leaving the doughnut shop and the blonde presidential descendant who worked there, they'd been unable to find DeMohrenschildt Lane again, or any other side street. — Donald Jeffries

He (Anwar Sadat) records that he was almost loathe to leave his prison cell because it was there that he realized that real success is success with self. It's not in having things, but in having mastery, having victory over self. — Stephen R. Covey

One time, when we'd been discussing martial arts, Murphy told me that eventually, no-one can teach you anything more about them. Once you reach that state of knowledge, the only way to keep learning and increasing your own skill is to teach what you know to others. That's why she teaches a children's class and a rape-defence course every spring and fall at one of her neighbourhood's community centres.
It sounded kind of flaky-Zen to me at the time, but Hell's bells, she'd been right. Once upon a time, it would have taken me an hour, if not more, to attain the proper frame of mind. In the course of teaching Molly to meditate, though, I had found myself going over the basics again for the first time in years, and understanding them with a deeper and richer perspective than I'd had when I was her age. I'd been getting almost as much insight and new understanding of my knowledge from teaching Molly as she'd been learning from me. — Jim Butcher

I won't share you, Dylan. I mean that. If you think for one second now that we're married, you can try and pull some kind of shit over on me, you'd better think again. I can take whatever you can dish out when it comes to pain, embarrassment and humiliation, and whatever else you have going on in that wicked mind of yours, but I'll be damned if I'll share you with another woman. Or man."
What the fuck? I almost laugh at her, but she's so serious she would probably slap the shit out of me. "Calm the hell down. I'm not trying to pull anything over on you, okay? And seriously, a man?"
"Well, I don't know. Maybe one of your secrets is that you like getting pegged in the ass or something."
This time I laugh out loud at her and she narrows her eyes at me.
"Don't ask me to peg you either, because it's never going to happen."
I laugh even louder. Good God this woman is funny. "I promise you that I don't want to be pegged, Isa. — Ella Dominguez

When you're head over heels about someone, it's a real painkiller. You almost wonder why doctors don't recommend it more. — Victor Lodato

I love touring. I can't wait. Everything is just normal when you're finally on tour. I think, for me, it's my happiest thing; I love moving around, and I have friends and family all over the place. It's kind of my time. It's almost like home. It's when I get to see everybody. — Alison Mosshart

Even though he had admitted to her that he used to watch me shower through a hole in the bathroom wall back when I was thirteen. She blamed us both for what we had "done" to her. But it sounds like she got over being mad at him pretty quick. She later told me that she had to go back and have sex with him one more time, just to make sure that there was nothing left between the two of them and to get some closure. That almost made me want to vomit. The only interaction between us after that was her showing up at the courthouse when I had to sit in front of a grand jury of twelve strangers and tell them what had happened. She came into the waiting room where I was sitting and started screaming that I was a whore and that I'd fucked her husband. She had to be escorted out of the court by two officers. That's what I got from her. — Ashly Lorenzana

I know it's going to be just magical, and almost certainly going to be over quickly - on playing Sharapova. — Casey Dellacqua

Thou art seeking Christ, close not those eyes, turn not away thy face from Calvary's streaming tree: now that Satan hinders thee, it is because the night is almost over, and the day-star begins to shine. Brethren, ye who are most molested, most sorrowfully tried, most borne down, yours is the brighter hope: be now courageous; play the man for God, for Christ, for your own soul, and yet the day shall come when you with your Master shall ride triumphant through the streets of the New Jerusalem, sin, death, and hell, captive at your chariot wheels, and you with your Lord crowned as victor, having overcome through the blood of the Lamb. May God bless dear friends now present. I do not know to whom this sermon may be most suitable, but I believe it is sent especially to certain tried saints. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Are you going to do it?" he asked. "Maybe," I said.
Don't 'maybe' me, baby. It's written all over you. I'd almost be willing to go along, you know. Of all my relations, I like sex the best and Eric the least."
I lit a cigarette, while I considered. — Roger Zelazny

Would you like me to write Mrs. Ames about inviting you to Yaddo? Get Miss Moore to write too. You can't invite yourself, though, of course, almost all the invitations are planned. It would be marvelous to have you there. I know the solitude that gets too much. It doesn't drug me, but I get fantastic and uncivilized.
At last my divorce [from Jean Stafford] is over. It's funny at my age to have one's life so much in and on one's hands. All the rawness of learning, what I used to think should be done with by twenty-five. Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing - I suppose that's what vocation means - at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction, so I'm thankful, and call it good, as Eliot would say. — Robert Lowell

Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the relection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it, and if ever its duplicating surface is temporarily wiped clean of modern life's ubiquitous hubbub, they will hasten to fog it over with such desperate personal noise devices as polite conversation, hummin, whistling, imaginary dialogue, schizophrenic babble, or, should it come to that, the clandestine cannonry of their own farting. Only in sleep is silence tolerated, and even there, most dreams have soundtracks. Since meditation is a deliberate descent into deep internal hush, a mute stare into the ultimate looking glass, it is regarded with suspicion by the nattering masses; with hostility by buisness interests (people sitting in silent serenity are seldom consuming goods); and with spite by a clergy whose windy authority it is seen to undermine and whose bombastic livelihood it is perceived to threaten. — Tom Robbins

I do notice that my songs fit all over the map, even in terms of the colloquialisms in them. The songs come out with their references intact, almost unheeded by me. It's like they existed somehow before they met me with their relationship to the tradition, and then they just end up coming through me at that moment because of my relationship to some certain kind of music that I've listened to in my life. I know that sounds a little bit woooey. — Mirah

Suddenly, the swan dropped down from the sky, flew low over the swamp, almost touching the water, just slow enough to have a closer look at the girl. The sight of the swan's cold eye staring straight into hers, made the girl feel exposed, hunted and found, while all those who had suddenly stopped eating fish, watched this big black thing look straight at the only person that nobody had ever bothered having a close look at. Her breathing went AWOL while her mind stitched row after row of fretting to strangle her breath: What are they thinking about me now? What did the swan have to single me out for and not anyone else standing around? What kind of premonition is this? Heart-thump thinking was really tricky for her. She feasted on a plague of outsidedness. It was always better never to have to think about what other people thought of her. — Alexis Wright

We're using up the Earth. It's almost gone. You can't live with such fears and keep on whistling. The waiting builds up in you like a tide. You start wanting it to be done with. You find yourself saying to the sky, Just do it. Do your worst. Get it over with. — Margaret Atwood

The GPS unit became almost equally obstreperous, though, over Richard's unauthorized route change, until they finally passed over some invisible cybernetic watershed between two possible ways of getting to their destination, and it changed its fickle little mind and began calmly telling him which way to proceed as if this had been its idea all along. — Neal Stephenson

Time is tricky. You have whole months, even years, when nothing changes a speck, when you don't go anywhere or do anything or think one new thought. And then you can get hit with a day, or an hour, or a half a second when so much happens it's almost like you got born all over again into some brand-new person you for damn sure never expected to meet. — E.R. Frank

In the US, first of all, the electoral system has been almost totally shredded. For a long time it's been pretty much run by private concentrated spending but now it's over the top. Elections increasingly over the years have been [public relations] extravaganzas. — Noam Chomsky

Narrative, however, has two kinds of time: first, its own real time, which like musical time defines its movement and presentation; and second, the time of its contents, which has a perspective quality that can vary widely, from a story in which the narrative's imaginary time is almost, or indeed totally coincident with its musical time, to one in which it stretches over light-years. — Thomas Mann

Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in "contact" with extraterrestrials. I am invited to "ask them anything." And so over the years I've prepared a little list of questions. The extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So I ask things like, "Please provide a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem." Or the Goldbach Conjecture. And then I have to explain what these are, because extraterrestrials will not call it Fermat's Last Theorem. So I write out the simple equation with the exponents. I never get an answer. On the other hand, if I ask something like "Should we be good?" I almost always get an answer. — Carl Sagan

The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self
all your wishes and precautions
to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call "ourselves," to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good. — C.S. Lewis

Get over yourself," I mutter. "I'd be wet if any guy was rubbing up against me."
"Bull. Fucking. Shit." His thumb brushes my clit. I almost fall over.
"It's me. You want me. — Elle Kennedy

It's all about our egos. She felt she was on the edge of understanding something important. They could fall in love with fresh, new people, or they could have the courage and humility to tear off some essential layer of themselves and reveal to each other a whole new level of otherness, a level far beyond what sort of music they liked. It seemed to her everyone had too much self-protective pride to truly strip down to their souls in front of their long-term partners. It was easier to pretend there was nothing more to know, to fall into an easygoing companionship. It was almost embarrassing to be truly intimate with your spouse; how could you watch someone floss one minute, and the next minute share your deepest passion or most ridiculous, trite little fears? It was almost easier to talk about that sort of thing before you'd shared a bathroom and a bank account and argued over the packing of the dishwasher. — Liane Moriarty

It's true that he would come to himself at once, and yet, if he were asked what he had been thinking about while standing there, he would most likely not remember, but would most likely keep hidden away in himself the impression he had been under while contemplating. These impressions are dear to him, and he is most likely storing them up imperceptibly and even without realizing it - why and what for, of course, he does not know either; perhaps suddenly, having stored up his impressions over many years, he will drop everything and wander off to Jerusalem to save his soul, or perhaps he will suddenly burn down his native village, or perhaps he will do both. There are plenty of contemplators among the people. Most likely Smerdyakov, too, was such a contemplator, and most likely he, too, was greedily storing up his impressions, almost without knowing why himself. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Why? Why do you care what happens to scum like them?'
De Loungville moved his horse alongside Erik's, so he was almost nose-to-nose with Erik when he answered. 'I don't care what happens to scum like them. You could cut off a piece at a time over a week and I wouldn't give a whore's promise for what it would do to them. But I do care what it would do to you, Erik. — Raymond E. Feist

The success [of the X-Men], I think, is for two reasons. The first is that, creatively, the book was close to perfect ... but the other reason is that it was a book about being different in a culture where, for the first time in the West, being different wasn't just accepted, but was also fashionable. I don't think it's a coincidence that gay rights, black rights, the empowerment of women and political correctness all happened over those twenty years and a book about outsiders trying to be accepted was almost the poster-boy for this era in American culture. — Mark Millar

I note however that this diary writing does not count as writing, since I have just re-read my year's diary and am much struck by the rapid haphazard gallop at which it swings along, sometimes indeed jerking almost intolerably over the cobbles. — Virginia Woolf

Perhaps it increased his annoyance that there was a certain unusual liveliness about the usually languid figure of Fisher. The ordinary image of him in March's mind was that of a pallid and bald-browed gentleman, who seemed to be prematurely old as well as prematurely bald. He was remembered as a man who expressed the opinions of a pessimist in the language of a lounger. Even now March could not be certain whether the change was merely a sort of masquerade of sunshine, or that effect of clear colors and clean-cut outlines that is always visible on the parade of a marine resort, relieved against the blue dado of the sea. But Fisher had a flower in his buttonhole, and his friend could have sworn he carried his cane with something almost like the swagger of a fighter. With such clouds gathering over England, the pessimist seemed to be the only man who carried his own sunshine. — G.K. Chesterton

That was close,"he said, helping himself to coffee.
Yeah, you almost opened the door to Morelli."
I wasn't talking about Morelli. I was talking about us."
That too," I said.
Ranger sliced a bagel and looked for the toaster.
It's broken,"I told him.
He truned the boiler on and slid the bagel into the oven.
That's surprisingly domestic for a man of mystery," I said to him.
He looked at me over the rim of his coffee mug. "I like things hot. — Janet Evanovich

There is a Western phenomenon called the male midlife crisis. Very often it is heralded by divorce. What history might have done to you, you bring about on purpose: separation from woman and child. Don't tell me that such men aren't tasting the ancient flavors of death and defeat.
In America, with divorce achieved, the midlifer can expect to be more recreational, more discretionary. He can almost design the sort of crisis he is going to have: motorbike, teenage girlfriend, vegetarianism, jogging, sports car, mature boyfriend, cocaine, crash diet, powerboat, new baby, religion, hair transplant.
Over here, now, there's no angling around for your male midlife crisis. It is brought to you and it is always the same thing. It is death. — Martin Amis

I had a real come-to-Jesus a couple of years ago when I started to see the direct line between feminism and everything else - feminism and climate change, feminism and poverty, feminism and hunger - and it was almost like I was born again and started walking down the street and was like, "Oh, my God, there are women everywhere! They're just everywhere you look. There's women all over the place!" — Amanda Palmer