It's Been A Year Since Quotes & Sayings

and THE TIGER One day, Dragon was out lounging in the shade with his best friend Tiger. The pair had been best friends ever since they were baby animals. They were the most popular animals in the entire forest and they knew it. Each year during the annual talent show, both Dragon and Tiger would perform a routine together. They performed magic tricks, balancing tricks and juggling tricks. The pair was unstoppable and each year took home the top awards. This year would not be any different, both Dragon and Tiger expected to win big at the next talent show. They had to upstage all the other animals, and this would be quite tough because most of the animals had been practicing their routines for months in order to have a chance at beating the Dragon and Tiger. — Martin Aaron

I remember being a 12 year old art kid and feeling like there was no exciting art movement happening, especially for somebody like me. I was looking around for artistic inspiration and could find nothing - until my older brother's friend brought a Giger book over to the house. Upon seeing the first image I knew I would never be the same. A whole new world opened up to me and I have been exploring it ever since. It's no doubt that I would not be here today, doing what I do, without his influence. H.R. Giger is the king of the Dark Art movement. — Chet Zar

I've been in the business since I was 16, so I've had a 14-year career. I've always had acting in my blood. Doing this, whatever it is, was something I was drawn to since my earliest memories. Ironically, I lived in Hollywood, but never understood that all it took was getting an agent and being persistent. — Leonardo DiCaprio

The most challenging thing for a young entrepreneur is to think long-term. When you are 22 years old, it's hard to think in 22-year increments since that's as long as you've been alive. But it's really important to view your life as an entrepreneur as a long journey that consists of many short-term cycles. — Brad Feld

I've been an entrepreneur since I was 18. I started a company with a bunch of buddies that got funded in my senior year, and that's when I finished school. It was called Scour, a peer-to-peer service, file-sharing. — Travis Kalanick

When she kissed me, she left me breathless. But it shouldn't have been a surprise, because every day since she'd entered my life a year ago, she'd been stealing my breath. — Adriane Leigh

After a year, it was great to get out of L.A. and return to Hyde Park. Since my grandparents lived in Hyde Park, I had been coming there since I was a tyke. — Bonnie Jo Campbell

In 2008, the Swedish telecom company Ericsson found itself under investigation by the U.S. State Department for selling telecom equipment to the regimes of Iran, Sudan, and Syria, all considered state sponsors of terrorism. In 2011, Ericsson was named in a State Department report proposing to include telecom restrictions as part of its new sanctions against terrorist regimes. That year, Ericsson sponsored a speech by Bill Clinton and paid him a whopping $750,000, around three times Clinton's fee at the time. Ericsson had never previously sponsored a Clinton speech. Ericsson's timing could not have been more fortuitous, since later that year the State Department unveiled its new sanctions list for Iran. Telecom sanctions were not on it. Douglas — Dinesh D'Souza

So a war begins. Into a peace-time life, comes an announcement, a threat. A bomb drops somewhere, potential traitors are whisked off quietly to prison. And for some time, days, months, a year perhaps, life has a peace-time quality, into which war-like events intrude. But when a war has been going on for a long time, life is all war, every event has the quality of war, nothing of peace remains. Events and the life in which they are embedded have the same quality. But since it is not possible that events are not part of the life they occur in
it is not possible that a bomb should explode into a texture of life foreign to it
all that means is that one has not understood, one has not been watching. — Doris Lessing

I'd come home from school alone with those teenage blues and I'd put on Frank Sinatra's It was a very good year. Here was this mature man singing about the cycle of his life, and as a kid I felt the emotions of it already. It has since been a touchstone for me whenever I want to experiment musically. — Iggy Pop

Then, despite all my better judgement, I asked the question I'd wanted to ask for nearly a year. "You and Mal, back in Kribirsk-"
"It happened."
I knew that and I knew there had been plenty of others before her, but it still stung. Zoya glanced at me, her long black lashes sparkling with rain. "But never since," she said grudgingly, "and it hasn't been for lack of trying. If a man can say no to me, that's something."
I rolled my eyes. Zoya poked me in the arm with one long finger. "He hasn't been with anyone, you idiot. Do you know what the girls back at the White Cathedral called him? Beznako"
A lost cause. — Leigh Bardugo

We're at the opening of the Globe." She thought back to Daniel's words under the peach trees at Sword & Cross. "Daniel told me we were here."
"Sure,you were here," Bill said. "About fourteen years ago.Perched on your older brother's shoulder. You came with your family to see Julius Caesar."
Bill hovered in the air a foot in front of her. It was unappetizing, but the high collar around her neck actually seemed to hold its shape. She almost resembled the sumptuously dressed women in the higher boxes.
"And Daniel?" she asked.
"Daniel was a player-"
"Hey!"
"That's whay they called the actors." Bill rolled his eyes. "He was just starting out then. To everyone else in the audience, his debut was utterly forgettable. But to little three-year-old Lucinda"-Bill shrugged-"it put the fire in you. You've been quote-unquote dying to get onstage ever since.Tonight's your night."
"I'm an actor? — Lauren Kate

I've been interested in American politics since I was eight. That was in 1968. It was an interesting year. I was a huge Eugene McCarthy supporter, so I guess he was the first senator I really knew about and cared about. — George Packer

It had been two weeks since her first real boyfriend, Jason, had broken
up with her on the eve of the first day of school. His exact words had been "Babe, you know I think you're
the best and all, but it's my senior year and I can't have the baggage of a relationship. I gotta live it up,
play the field. You get it, right?" Uh, not exactly. So Michele had to begin her junior year with a broken
heart, which grew all the more painful last week, when word spread that Jason was hooking up with a
sophomore, Carly Marsh — Alexandra Monir

I'm a 50-year-old guy making music for over 20 years. I've been writing songs since I was 20, so it's really been 30 years, and it's always been personal, but I've always told stories. — Art Alexakis

Now, let's imagine that we have been condemned for life to making, year in year out a burdensome and nearly impossible decision to which the world increasingly and inexplicably ascribes a crazy importance. How do we go about it? We look for some simple, rapid, and broadly acceptable criteria that will help us get this pain out of the way. And since, as Borges himself noted, aesthetics are difficult and require a special sensibility and long reflection while political affiliations are easier and quickly grasped, we begin to identify those areas of the world that have grabbed public attention, perhaps because of political turmoil or abuses of human rights; we find those authors who have already won a huge level of respect and possibly major prizes in the literary communities of these countries and who are outspokenly committed to the right side of whatever political divide we're talking about, and we select them. — Tim Parks

During the last 17 years ... I have been working at the restoration of a once exhausted hillside. Its scars are now healed over, though still visible, and this year it has provided abundant pasture, more than in any year since we have owned it. But to make it as good as it is now has taken 17 years. If I had been a millionaire or if my family had been starving, it would still have taken 17 years. It can be better than it is now, but that will take longer. For it to live fully in its own responsibility, as it did before bad use ran it down, may take hundreds of years. — Wendell Berry

It is a foible of our human nature that when we have an extremely unpleasant experience, it gives us a peculiar satisfaction if it is "the biggest" of its disagreeable kind that has happened since the world began. During a heat wave, for instance, we are very pleased if the papers announce that it is "the highest temperature reached since the year 1881," and we feel a little resentment towards the year 1881 for having gone us one better. Or if our ears are frozen till all the skin peels off, it fills us with a certain happiness to learn that "it was the hardest frost recorded since 1786." It is just the same with wars. The war in progress is either the most righteous or the bloodiest, or the most successful, or the longest, since such and such a time; any superlative whatever always affords us the proud satisfaction of having been through something extraordinary and record-breaking. — Karel Capek

I focus on my favorite daydream, the one where I return from London at the end of the summer and am all glamorous and drop-dead gorgeous and every girl in my school is completely jealous when Quinn McKeyan asks me to Fall Homecoming because he can't resist my charm.
Hey, it's my daydream. I can dream what I want to.
The thing is, Quinn's face keeps getting replaced in my head by Dante's.
Since I've had a mad crush on Quinn from the time we started kindergarten all the way through our junior year last year, that's saying something.
Every daydream I've had for eleven years has been of him. I'm a very loyal daydreamer. And I suddenly feel like I'm cheating on my imaginary boyfriend, a boy who happens to be real, but who has been dating my best friend Becca for the past two years. And no. Becca has no idea that I'm secretly in love with her boyfriend. It's the one secret that I've kept from her. — Courtney Cole

Historical fact: People stopped being people in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joy-sticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds. — Jeffrey Eugenides

I wore no jewels save the pendant Brisbane had given me with its secret code - the code that had given me my first inkling that he loved me. It had not been so very long since he had given it to me, a year only; twelve leaves of the calendar torn away, a few dozen weeks from then to now. But how much change that year had wrought! — Deanna Raybourn

Then the pints will get further apart, and then one of us will get into a relationship and won't be around as much; the texts will start with Hey, too long no see, and all of a sudden we'll realize it's been a year since we met up. And — Tana French

In the month and a half since the Earl of Hargate's fourth son had arrived in Egypt, he had broken twenty-three separate laws and been jailed nine times. For what Mr. Carsington had cost the (England) consulate in fines and bribes, Mr. Salt (His Majesty's consul general) might have dismantled and shipped to England one of the smaller temples on the island of Philae.
He now knew exactly why Lord Hargate had sent his twenty-nine-year-old offspring to Egypt. It was not, as his lordship had written, "to assist the consul general in his services on behalf of the nation."
It was to saddle someone else with the responsibility and expense. — Loretta Chase

I'm a sucker for turquoise sea, white beaches and palm trees. I've been to the tropics every year since I could afford it. It's the perfect place to unwind. I can chill out, read, do a bit of yoga. — Bruno Tonioli

Before we light the Yule log, I want to give you this. You have been a very good girl this year, and a wonderful daughter." He held something out to her. Jaclyn hadn't noticed he was carrying anything. She looked down to see he was holding a branch with green leaves and white berries. She gasped, "It's beautiful!" and took the branch from his hand. "The berries reminded me of the winter snow," her father said softly. Jaclyn nodded. "But the green leaves belong in the summer!" She looked up at him. "The trees have long since lost their leaves. Where did you find it?" "I had to travel very far to find it." he told her, leaning in to add, "It's magical. — Laurel O'Donnell

It's been just a year since the RNC committed to revamp the way they help our candidates with its 'Growth and Opportunity Project,' and already there are signs of improvement. From new leadership and initiatives in the digital arena, to improving the GOP ground game (as we just saw with David Jolly's victory in FL-13), to the historic decision to restructure the primary calendar and primary debates, the RNC's steps will help keep the House and to take the Senate in 2014, win the White House in 2016, and build for the future. Looking forward to more progress in the months ahead. — Karl Rove

Controls is about fear, see. If you're afraid enough of the reprisals, you don't say no, you don't fight back, you don't run away. Saying yes is how you survive. It becomes normal. Horrible, but normal. Horrible, because it's normal. Now, lucky you can say 'Not standing up to him is giving him permission,' but if you've been fed this diet since the year dot, there is no standing up. Victims aren't cowards. Outsiders, like, they never have a clue how brave you have to be just to carry on. — David Mitchell

I'm always open. I try not to have a closed mind. In fact the only reason why I'm able to continue to make films since 1986 is I have been adaptable. If I weren't flexible I sure wouldn't be making films this many years as I've been doing it. I've been making a film a year almost since 1986 and that's hard. That ain't easy. — Spike Lee

I've been rapping and writing since junior high school, just having fun with it as a hobby. Then I got signed to a label Poe Boy Entertainment four years ago, I started taking it serious about a year and a half, two years ago. — Jacki-O

This fight means the world to me. It's what I've been dreaming about since I was 10 years old to win a world title. I'm going in their with nothing less than a victory. I think it's safe to say the fight is not going the distance and it's going to be a fight of the year candidate. He's going to come to fight, I'm coming to fight and I plan on leaving September 8th as the new world champion — John Molina Jr.

A year ago Guyana became politically free and independent. She assumed the untrammeled right to make her own decisions on what ought to be done or ought not to be done within her border. Since then, hers has also been the right to decide what course she would take and to state her views and opinions positively in the fora of the world. As we celebrate the first anniversary of freedom, it is our duty to take account of what we have achieved or what we have failed to do, to note where we have done well and what we ought to have done better. — Forbes Burnham

If it weren't for the fact that he'd been flat on his back in a full body cast, then recovering, he probably would be glad he missed finishing the school year since it meant he's now enrolled at his version of Hogwarts. — Andrea Cremer

It had been almost 30 years since the LPGA has played in Mexico. We are definitely looking forward to playing there next year and also coming back to play in Mexico in a month or so. — Natalie Gulbis

It's been a year and nine month since we broke up. It's almost the second spring since then. When I turn 20 in March, I'm going to buy myself a much deserved present. A one way ticket to Tokyo. As for luggage, all I need is my guitar and my smokes. - Nana — Ai Yazawa

It has been a year, two months, and seventeen days since I last saw him.Two years, ten months and five days since he broke my heart.Technically, he began breaking my heart the moment I met him, five years, eleven months, and one day ago. — Willow Aster

Since the late 1970's, the main focus of prisons has been punishment, not rehabilitation. It's hard to believe, but you would be hard-pressed to find a meaningful violence-prevention class in a federal or state penitentiary. And 'we the people' are footing the bill to keep these folks imprisoned. It costs on average $46,000 a year to keep an adult incarcerated in California and about the same for New York State. — James Fox

Since I was in flight from religion, I assumed that my classmates had to be in flight from religion too, albeit in a quieter, savvier way than I had as yet been able to discover. Only today do I realize how mistaken I was. They were never in flight at all. Nor are their children in flight, or their grandchildren. By the time I reached by seventieth year, I used to predict, all the churches in the world would have been turned into barns or museums or potteries. But I was wrong. Behold, new churches spring up every day, all over the place, to say nothing of mosques. So Nietzsche's dictum needs to be amended: while it may be so that only the higher animals are capable of boredom, man proves himself highest of all by domesticating boredom, giving it a home. — J.M. Coetzee

Ever since I was a kid, I've been into clothes, but not really labels- that's kind of only been in the last year or so. It's something I've always cared about. I used to just constantly thrift and make stuff and cut stuff up and borrow my dad's stuff and borrow my little brother's stuff and all that jazz ... It's just, if something is cool, then it's cool. — Lorde

History lesson, folks: The tax system we have today - the one we've come to know and love - began ninety-four years ago as a (drum roll, please) flat tax! The monstrosity you see today is a flat tax on income after nearly a century of very imperfect evolution. At first, only a very small percentage of Americans were asked to pay income tax. In fact, that's how they sold it to us - as a tax on the rich!
Well, that all changed with World War II. The cost of the war effort led to an expansion of those who paid federal income taxes - and we were off to the races. The tax code was flattened again, if you will, in 1986. Since that time it has been amended 16,000 times. We now have more than 67,000 pages of statutes and regulations - which helps explain why, last year, nearly two-thirds of all tax filers had to seek professional help with their tax return. — Neal Boortz

Things have slowed down considerably since the new series has started airing and I am currently looking for work. It has been a nice year-long vacation nonetheless. — Rob Mariano

Listening to him, I realized how long it had been since I'd felt like I had the world by the balls, how many quick birthdays had gone by since that first year in Europe when I was so ignorant and so confident that every splinter of luck made me feel like a roaring champion. — Hunter S. Thompson

On my birthday, every year since I turned eighteen, she called me at twelve twenty in the morning to wish me happy birthday and tell me how much joy I brought her. She'd told me she was sorry she couldn't do it when I turned thirty, and handed me a box filled with little bits of paper. She'd written Happy Birthday to my baby boy on every one. There must have been fifty of them. — T.A. Webb

In the course of my travels I met a scientist who enabled people who had been blind since birth to begin to see, another who enabled the deaf to hear; I spoke with people who had had strokes decades before and had been declared incurable, who were helped to recover with neuroplastic treatments; I met people whose learning disorders were cured and whose IQs were raised; I saw evidence that it is possible for eighty-year-olds to sharpen their memories to function the way they did when they were fifty-five. I saw people rewire their brains with their thoughts, to cure previously incurable obsessions and traumas. I spoke with Nobel laureates who were hotly debating how we must rethink our model of the brain now that we know it is ever changing. The — Norman Doidge

Ever since I left Greece more than two decades ago, it has been my dream to return and perform at the Acropolis. This project took more than a year and a half to plan and accomplish, and I would like to thank my band and crew and the scores of people involved in helping my dream become a reality. — Yanni

I laid back the lounge chair and rolled to my stomach, content.
Sounds of splashing faded as I dozed.
And then I heard a beautiful voice ...
"Cover your arse, and nobody gets hurt."
I lifted my head to see Kaidan crouched next to me. He was here! Just as I was about to get up and throw my arms around him, his gaze slid down my body to my butt and stayed there. Hello, stormy eyes.
I felt twice as hot under the sun as I had one minute ago.
I threw the towel over my body, which forced his eyes back to mine.
"Hey," I whispered.
He touched my face, and I leaned into his palm.
"I feel like it's been a year since I saw you," he said softly. "I've missed you."
I reached up and cupped his hand. "I've missed you, too."
"But you're still in trouble." His voice was low and gravelly. — Wendy Higgins

I go to ComicCon every year, but it's in a work capacity. I'm a legitimate fan of comics, and I have been since I was 5. — Clark Duke

I'm realistic about it. It's been quite some years since I've worked full-time in that area, so I no longer have any material that bears any relevance to my life or the audience. I'd need to take probably a year off, which I wouldn't be prepared to do, so it's a romantic ideal. — Eric Bana

Wyatt Earp had been born, and born again, and now there would be a third life, for the iron fist that had seized his soul in childhood had lost its grip at last. The long struggle for control was over, and in its place, he found a wordless acceptance of a truth he'd always known. He was bred to this anger. It had been in him since the cradle. He'd never bullied neighbors or beaten a horse. He'd never punched the front teeth out of a six-year-old's mouth or hit a woman until she begged. But he was no better than his father, and never had been. He was far, far worse. — Mary Doria Russell

I don't think Roger Ebert has ever mentioned a screenplay. He assigns every auctorial move to the director, which makes some sense since the director has run a one-off game, but if Hamlet were written last year and had been only performed once as a film, and it didn't come off well on screen for whatever reason, it would be gone forever as a literary work, and never would have been considered as one. — William Monahan

Hitting the Road Trucking 222 Plaza Place Outthereville, MA 90000 May 22, 20xx To Whom It May Concern: Ron Goodley has been an employee of Hitting the Road Trucking since September 4, 20xx, a total of over five years. He has a full-time position as a driver. His salary is $45,000 per year. This position is permanent, and Ron's prospects for performance-based advancement and salary increases are excellent. Very truly yours, Bob Bossman Personnel Manager Hitting the Road Trucking — Ilona Bray

Hey, it's nice of you to show up!" That was a decent start. "What has it been - a year since you flattened my heart by leaving without a word and ignoring all of my texts, messages, and voicemails? — Atom Yang

She can't say to herself that it is really over, even though anyone else would say it was over, since he has moved to another city, hasn't been in touch with her in more than a year, and is married to another woman. — Lydia Davis

It's been over a year since they've graduated, but neither of the Bush twins have found any work. Why don't they sign up (for military service in Iraq)? Do they hate America, or just freedom in general? — Bill Maher

When I get really hammered I take my clothes off. That's a sure sign. It's been a long time since the last time I did that. Probably a year. — Michael Stipe

I remember all of these things happening and the places we lived in and the fine times and the bad times we had in that year. But much more vividly I remember living in the book and making up what happened in it every day. Making the country and the people and the things that happened I was happier than I had ever been. Each day I read the book through from the beginning to the point where I went on writing and each day I stopped when I was still going good and when I knew what would happen next. The fact the book was a tragic one did not make me unhappy since I believed that life was a tragedy and knew it could have only one end. But finding you were able to make something up; to create truly enough so that it made you happy to read it; and to do this every day you worked was something that gave a greater pleasure than any I had ever known. Beside it nothing else mattered. — Ernest Hemingway,

Just tell me, Percy, do you still have the birthday gift I gave you last summer?" I nodded and pulled out my camp necklace. It had a bead for every summer I'd been at Camp Half-Blood, but since last year I'd also kept a sand dollar on the cord. My father had given it to me for my fifteenth birthday. He'd told me I would know when to "spend it," but so far I hadn't figured out what he meant. All I knew that it didn't fit the vending machines in the school cafeteria. — Rick Riordan

Changes have taken place since year one. When Caruso left, that was a big change. We've been able to adapt nicely. It's given us new opportunities for different characters and story lines. — Dennis Franz

I'm not big on dark chocolate, but I do have a sweet tooth, so it gets me in trouble. I love warm chocolate chip cookies with ice cream. Then there's this chocolate pie my mom makes for me every year for my birthday. She's been making it since I was younger, and there's nothing like it. It's really so, so good! — Phillip Phillips

Thus I continued about a year; all which time our neighbours did take me to be a very godly man, a new and religious man, and did marvel much to see such a great and famous alteration in my life and manners; and indeed so it was, though yet I knew not Christ, nor grace, nor faith, nor hope; for, as I have well seen since, had I then died, my state had been most fearful. — John Bunyan

It was the case for a number of years that I was doing a book a year, but that was back when I was part-time teaching - and since 1991, I've been a parent, so that cuts into the time! — Chris Van Allsburg

In the Clarendon Library at Oxford University sits a battery-powered bell that has been ringing since the year 1840. The bell "rings" so quietly it's almost inaudible, using only a tiny amount of charge with every motion of the clapper. Nobody knows exactly what kind of batteries it uses because nobody wants to take it apart to figure it out. — Randall Munroe

He read me another poem, and another one - and he explained the true history of poetry, which is a kind of secret, a magic known only to wise men. Mr. Premier, I won't be saying anything new if I say that the history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time. The poor win a few battles (the peeing in the potted plants, the kicking of the pet dogs, etc.) but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years. That's why, on day, some wise men, out of compassion for the poor, left them signs and symbols in poems, which appear to be about roses and pretty girls and things like that, but when understood correctly spill out secrets that allow the poorest man on earth to conclude the ten-thousand-year-old brain-war on terms favorable to himself. — Aravind Adiga

[Margaret] went to a talk on parenting at the end of the school year where the speaker had said that doing good things, charitable things, was actually a selfish act, because it made you feel good. She has been mulling that ever since. Should she do something selfless, something good? Should she reach out to someone who really needs her forgiveness? Would this make her feel better? — Janice Y.K. Lee

It's alright" said a dreamy voice from beside Harry as Ron vanished into the coach's dark interior. "You're not going mad or anything. I can see them too."
"Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide, silvery eyes.
"Oh yes," said Luna, "I've been able to see them since my first year here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am."
Smiling faintly, she climbed into the musty interior of the carriage after Ron. Not altogether reassured, Harry followed her. — J.K. Rowling

The worst thing about Halloween is, of course, candy corn. It's unbelievable to me. Candy corn is the only candy in the history of America that's never been advertised. And there's a reason. All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911. And so, since nobody eats that stuff, every year there's a ton of it left over. — Lewis Black

Obviously, you've got to make the chase first, so first things first - get in the chase. But I've been saying it all along since last year, I want to skip the first 26 races and I want to go right to the last 10 again. That's where they pay the money. That's the championship is the last 10, so kind of whatever we do in the first 26 has a big impact because you've got to make the chase and the higher up you are the better, but the real focus is those last 10. — Greg Biffle

I always feel stupid giving advice since I've been married, what, a year? I can say this: Be in it for the long haul and just know there are going to be rough patches. No two people are the same, there are going to be areas where you just don't click. — Nick Lachey

A boy in my house was strange enough. But a guy who was that comfortable in someone else's house, around a parent? A boy who knew how to chop vegetables? A boy who voluntarily helped with everything? Was he one of those adults masqerading as a teenager! Was he a narc or something? Maybe there was a big drug problem at my school and twenty-five-year-old Robbie had been sent in to fix it.
Except that he'd been around since kindergarten, so unless the cops planned way ahead, that was out of the question. — Kieran Scott

At the ponds that evening I said to Antonio: "It's always been like that, since we were little: everyone thinks she's bad and I'm good."
He kissed me, murmuring ironically, "Why, isn't that true?"
That response touched me and kept me from telling him that we had to part. It was a decision that seemed to me urgent, the affection wasn't love, I loved Nino, I knew I would love him forever. I had a gentle speech prepared for Antonio, I wanted to say to him: It's been wonderful, you helped me a lot at a time when I was sad, but now school is starting and this year is going to be difficult, I have new subjects, I'll have to study a lot; I'm sorry but we have to stop. I felt it was necessary and every afternoon I went to our meeting at the ponds with my little speech ready. But he was so affectionate, so passionate, that my courage failed and I put it off. — Elena Ferrante

European nation with highest politician/lover ratio: Few European states can hope to compete with France and Italy in this department, and the two nations have been battling for European political lothario supremacy for over thirty years. The contest has been increasingly acrimonious since 1998, when France was initially the clear winner but somehow "lost" sixty-eight illicit lovers in the recount and had to concede defeat. The following year was no less rocked in scandal, when the Italians were disqualified for "stretching the boundaries" of their elected representatives to include senior civil servants - and the crown was tossed back to France. No one was quite prepared for the disgraceful scandal the following year when it was discovered that one French minister had no mistress at all and "loved his wife," a shocking revelation that led to his resignation and ultimately to the fall of the government. — Jasper Fforde

On a piece of wasteland in Leeds I once saw a used condom in the grass. A dead and sordid thing. And yet to my thirteen-year-old mind the whole mystery of life seemed to stream through it. Nothing I've seen since has been so eloquent of the thrilling and terrifying mysteries of life. — Glenn Haybittle

I was happy as a child with my toys in my nursery. I been happier every year since I became a man. But this interlude of school makes a somber grey patch upon the chart of my journey. It was a unending spell of worries that did not then seem petty, and of toil uncheered by fruition; a time of discomfort, restriction and purposeless monotony. — Winston Churchill

It's been a tough year ... Someone said I should send out Buddhist thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that challenges you makes you pull yourself together. — Robin Williams

It has been so long since Liverpool won the title, I was a 12-year-old Everton fan the last time it happened. — Jamie Carragher

How soon do you want to move in?" "As soon as possible after school is out. In about six or seven weeks." "Are you a teacher too?" AJ asked. Shelby shook her head. "I have a first grader. And a three-year-old." "You're married?" As AJ's brown eyes flitted to her left hand, she self-consciously folded it into her waist. It'd been over a year since Gary's death, but she still wore her wedding band. More for her daughters' sakes than her own. "I was. — Johnnie Alexander

I have to write three books a year to make a reasonable living out of writing - unless, of course, she gets a major American film deal. Phryne has been optioned since the very first book, but to make a historical TV movie, it costs $30,000 a day extra for the historical detail to be correct, so most people aren't doing it. — Kerry Greenwood

The American Type Culture Collection - a nonprofit whose funds go mainly toward maintaining and providing pure cultures for science - has been selling HeLa since the sixties. When this book went to press, their price per vial was $256. The ATCC won't reveal how much money it brings in from HeLa sales each year, but since HeLa is one of the most popular cell lines in the world, that number is surely significant. — Rebecca Skloot

In the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University sits a battery-powered bell that has been ringing since the year 1840. The bell "rings" so quietly it's almost inaudible, using only a tiny amount of charge with every motion of the clapper. Nobody knows exactly what kind of batteries it uses because nobody wants to take it apart to figure it out. Sadly, there's no light hooked up to it. — Randall Munroe

It's been 80 years since the Senate has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee who was nominated during an election. And particularly when the court hangs in the balance, it makes no sense whatsoever to give Barack Obama the power to jam through a judge in the final election year. — Ted Cruz

Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned. All I know about grammar is its infinite power. To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed. Many people know about camera angles now, but not so many know about sentences. The arrangement of the words matters, and the arrangement you want can be found in the picture in your mind. The picture dictates the arrangement. The picture dictates whether this will be a sentence with or without clauses, a sentence that ends hard or a dying-fall sentence, long or short, active or passive. The picture tells you how to arrange the words and the arrangement of the words tells you, or tells me, what's going on in the picture. Nota bene.
It tells you.
You don't tell it. — Joan Didion

The great thing about having a pool in L.A. is that I can use it year-round. And since I've always been an athlete, staying fit is very important. — Vera Wang

If I had still been an immortal, I might have flirted with her myself. But I was now a sixteen-year-old boy. My mortal form was working its way upon my state of mind. I saw Sally Jackson as a mom - a fact that both consternated and embarrassed me. I thought about how long it had been since I had called my own mother. I should probably take her to lunch when I got back to Olympus. — Rick Riordan

It's been a year and 3 months since we've kissed, and I rather have the ghost of his mouth on my lips than kiss anyone else. — Alishah Khan

It had been a little over a year since the last murder; moreover it had been a year since I had run as quickly as legally possible from whom I had been. It had taken almost that long to become a legal adult, get the money straightened out and get my name changed. Who was Abigail? Who was Vera? I felt as though I was neither person. I felt like I wasn't a person at all anymore. — Cassandra Giovanni

It's been open about a year now.And it is one of my favorite places in the city."
"You never told me," he said, sounding surprised.
"So even after all these years,we can still surprise one another," she teased.
He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the cheek. "Even after all these years," he said. "So enlighten me-how often do you come to this place?"
"Five,maybe six times a week."
"Oh?"
"Every morning when I'd leave the shop,I'd usually walk down to the Embarcadero,amble along the promenade and end up walking the length of this pier.Where did you think I was for that hour?"
"I thought you'd popped across the road for coffee."
"Yea,Nicholas," Perenelle said in French. "I drink tea. You know I hate coffee."
"You hate coffee?" Nicholas said. "Since when?"
"Only for the last eighty years or so."
Nicholas blinked,pale eyes reflecting the blue of the sea. "I knew that.I think."
"You're teasing me."
"Maybe," he admitted. — Michael Scott

In July, 1853, it pleased the Lord to try my faith in a way in which before it had not been tried. My beloved daughter and only child, and a believer since the commencement of the year 1846, was taken ill on June 20th. "This illness, at first a low fever, turned to typhus. On July 3rd there seemed no hope of her recovery. Now was the trial of faith. But faith triumphed. My beloved wife and I were enabled to give her up into the hands of the Lord. He sustained us both exceedingly. But I will only speak about myself. Though my only and beloved child was brought near the grave, yet was my soul in perfect peace, satisfied with the will of my Heavenly Father, being assured that He would only do that for her and her parents, which in the end would be the best. She continued very ill till about July 20th, when restoration began. "On — George Muller

I haven't seen it this busy since I've been an IndyCar driver. So I think that's a great kind of thing that's happening for the IndyCar Series, in general, right now. But it's an event that I'm very proud to be part of. I love it. I can't wait to come back next year. — Dan Wheldon

Finally I grinned and said, "I won't eat meat if it's been overcooked." She (Amarinda) glanced up at me, confused, and I added, "I thought you should know that, since we're going to be friends now."
Amarinda's smile widened. "I think it's unfair that women aren't allowed to wear trousers. They seem far more comfortable than dresses."
I chuckled. "They're not. Every year I think fashion invents one more piece I have to add to my wardrobe."
"And one more layer to my skirts." She thought for a moment, then said, "I think it's funny when you're rude to the cook. I shouldn't admit that, but his face turns all sorts of colors when you are and there's nothing he can do about it."
"He can overcook my meat. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

Bastien rolled his eyes, "Calm down, Hauk. All you're going to do is hurt yourself."
He glared at Bastien. "If you want to see exactly how angry someone can get, tell them to calm down when they're already pissed off!" Bellowing, he tried his best to break free.
"Is that helping? I just gotta know."
"When I get loose, Cabarro, your ass is the first one I'm kicking."
"Oh good. Hope you get out soon. Been awhile since I had a good ass-kicking." Bastien made a kissy face at him.
"Says the man who's so bruised, he looks like a two-year old banana."
"Now that's just mean and hurtful."
"Telise! He's awake again."
She moved forward and kicked Hauk in the face. "I wouldn't do that," Bastien warned. "Don't motivate the Andarion for murder. It ain't going to work out well for any of us. 'Specially me, since mine's the first ass he's planning to come after. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Don't talk so, Lysis. I'm sure you kept your head much better than I did." He smiled, and quoted a certain phrase, recalling a personal matter between us. Then he said, "Am I getting old, to find myself always thinking, 'Last year was better'?"-"Sometimes it seems to me, Lysis, that nothing has been the same since the Games."-"We think so, my dear, because that was our concern. If you asked that potter over there, or that old soldier, or Kallippides the actor, each would name his own Isthmia, I daresay ... It has been a long war, Alexias. Twenty-four years now. Even Troy was only ten. — Mary Renault

In stories, when someone behaves uncharacteristically, we take it as a meaningful, even pivotal moment. If we are surprised again and again, we have to keep changing our minds, or give up and disbelieve the writer. In real life, if people think they know you well enough not only to say, 'It's Tuesday, Amy must be helping out at the library today,' but well enough to say to the librarian, after you've left the building, 'You know, Amy just loves reading to the four-year-olds, I think it's been such a comfort for her since her little boy died' - if they know you like that, you can do almost anything where they can't see you, and when they hear about it, they will, as we do, simply disbelieve the narrator. — Amy Bloom

If you've never been through it, you can't understand it, not really. Lucky you, I say. Control is about fear, see. If you're afraid of the reprisals, you don't say no, you don't fight back, you don't run away. Saying yes is how you survive. It becomes normal. Horrible, but normal. Horrible, because it's normal. Now, lucky you can say, 'Not standing up to him is giving him permission,' but if you've been fed this diet since the year dot, there is no standing up. Victims aren't cowards. Outsiders, like, they never have a clue how brave you have to be to carry on. — David Mitchell

It had actually been a year since I'd finally broken up with Glen. I'd moved in with him after two dates (I would have made a great lesbian) and things had gone downhill quickly. How well I remembered our last morning together. He'd woken me early one morning by hitting me in the face with his cock and demanding a before-work blowjob. Since he'd been out all night without me and the dick he'd just assaulted me with smelled of eau de lubricant, I'd refused to open my mouth. I'd given his balls a twist I hoped he was still feeling and headed back to Gran's. — Nick Pageant

Miss Hunter leaned toward Stormy. Well, as you also may know, ever since the year when Dylan Jackson was nominated for and won prom queen without his knowledge, it's been school policy to inform all nominees that they have been selected as a candidate for prom queen. — John Zakour

Her seven-year-old self had decided that stealing books was morally bankrupt, but since the books hadn't actually left the library - they'd merely been relocated - it wasn't technically stealing. Echo looked around at her sea of tomes, and a single word came to mind: Tsundoku. It was the Japanese word for letting books pile up without reading them all. — Anonymous

I'd do it all over again, you know. I wouldn't trade one second if it meant we were right here, in this moment."
She took in a deep breath, and I gently kissed her forehead.
"This is it," I whispered.
"What?"
"The moment. When I watch you sleeping ... that peace on your face? This is it. I haven't had it since before my mom died, but I can feel it again." I took another deep breath and pulled her closer. "I knew the second I met you that there was something about you I needed. Turns out it wasn't something about you at all. It was just you."
Abby offered a tired smile as she buried her face into my chest. "It's us, Trav. Nothing makes sense unless we're together. Have you noticed that?"
"Noticed? I've been telling you that all year!" I teased. — Jamie McGuire

Gon be hard from here on, Handful. Since that day a year past, I'd got myself a friend in Miss Sarah and found how to read and write, but it'd been a heartless road like mauma said, and I didn't know what would come of us. We might stay here the rest of our lives with the sky slammed shut, but mauma had found the part of herself that refused to bow and scrape, and once you find that, you got trouble breathing on your neck. — Sue Monk Kidd