Quotes & Sayings About Laid Off

Still deep I burrow, waiting for tomorrow. Closed off, I bear. The open elements don't care. Laid here in this nest, dormant now I rest. Aching to live and roam, though still burrowed in my tomb. When time brings my spring, maybe I'll rise like a king.
-Anonymous — Linda Kage

Mr. Bingham said, "Hey, you guys are supposedly psychic. Why didn't you see that coming and warn the girl?"
Mom sighed. "Again, we don't see the future."
"Yeah. You're a bunch of frauds."
I'd had it. My frustration boiled over. I turned to Mrs. Bingham. "Do you know a Jane Sutherland?"
Confusion swept over her delicate features. "Yes, she used to be my husband's secretary before he was laid off. What about her?"
"He wasn't laid off. He was fired. The company has rules against boinking your secretary, even though your husband apparently has no qualms with the matter."
"Clarity!" Mom screamed. — Kim Harrington

I mean that certain fictions, chiefly Conan Doyle, Stevenson, but many others also, laid out a template that was more powerful than any local documentary account - the presences that they created, or "figures" if you prefer it, like Rabbi Loew's Golem, became too much and too fast to be contained within the conventional limits of that fiction. They got out into the stream of time, the ether; they escaped into the labyrinth. They achieved an independent existence.
The writers were mediums; they articulated, they gave a shape to some pattern of energy that was already present. They got in on the curve of time, so that by writing, by holding off the inhibiting reflex of the rational mind, they were able to propose a text that was prophetic. — Iain Sinclair

I am concerned about the economy. I was the first one laid off. — Al Gore

The Indian was a gentleman named Sequoyah, somewhat older than the young Wilsons and their friends. He nodded soberly to Jamie, and swinging the bundle off his shoulder, laid it on the ground at Jamie's feet, saying something in Cherokee. — Diana Gabaldon

When I got laid off, I would write my friends these 15-page-long emails. This was before people had personal emails, and my friends would tell me that I was going to get them fired if I kept sending them stuff, so I started a website. — Jen Lancaster

That is Kingsley Edge. And he is the opposite of boring. And if you three have any sense you'll stay away from him."
"What sense I had just took her panties off and laid down in front of him, — Tiffany Reisz

On the other hand, Protestantism's shedding away of authority, as evidenced by my mother's proclamation that I needn't go to church or listen to a preacher to achieve salvation, inspires self-reliance - along with a dangerous disregard for expertise. So the impulse that leads to democracy can also be the downside of democracy - namely, a suspicion of people who know what they are talking about. It's why in U.S. presidential elections the American people will elect a wisecracking good ol'boy who's fun in a malt shop instead of a serious thinker who actually knows some of the pompous, brainy stuff that might actually get fewer people laid off or killed. — Sarah Vowell

My mom was a model, and her laid-back but put-together sensibility really rubbed off on me. — Tony Parker

Power without control is worthless." Acheron's favorite saying. At least it was Ash's pet phrase any time Nick got behind the wheel and laid into the accelerator.
"Damn it, Nick! You've got to learn to go slow and not rush off into traffic at warp ten, especially not when it's heading straight for you!" Acheron's oth favorite rant where he was concerned. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Ally turned
her attention back to Brian Byrne. "So what do you do for a living when you're not searching out
your roots?"
"Have sex with thousands of women." He slanted her a grin that would've knocked her off
her feet if she wasn't already laid out flat by his comment. "Professionally, of course."
"Well, that makes it okay then." A porn star? Her instinct said no. But her instinct had also
thought Dave was a great guy when she first met him. How wrong was that? Hmm. What else
could Brian be? How about crazy? Sounded logical to her. She was alone with a crazy man. A
sexy crazy man, but crazy was still crazy. — Nina Bangs

I am the Terrell off the field who is laid back and this is me. — Terrell Owens

Off the floor, I'm really laid back: like, nothing really fazes me too much. But on the floor, I do get emotional and a little carried away. However, I started playing when I was 13 to have fun with my teammates, and that never stopped. I enjoy traveling and having fun in the locker room with the guys. Life is too short to be miserable. — Dirk Nowitzki

She was a freaking princess.
And he was a poor Vamp from the Bronx. If he laid a finger on her, she'd probably bite it off. Hell, she'd chew all ten of his digits down to mere stubs, and then her father would sic a pack of werewolves on him to rip apart the rest of this body. — Kerrelyn Sparks

O'Neill could feel rising off them devotion and love for him, and he knew they would lay down their lives for their high chieftain and for the new cause, only now taking shape in their heads. The cause. Unthinkable just a year before - freedom from occupation. Freedom from oppression. Indeed, their heinous oppressors were approaching - English soldiers who had slaughtered their brothers, their wives, their mothers. Their children. Soldiers who had mindlessly laid waste to their home provinces. To Ireland. Never before had these men fought for the whole of this ancient land, but now they understood, and their hearts - God bless their staunch hearts - were strong and ready to fight. Raising his sword high above his head, O'Neill, with slow deliberation, lowered it, and the glorious blue morning exploded into sound. C — Robin Maxwell

Don't you go up on the roof in that!" I exclaimed, sitting up abruptly. "That's your good woolen shirt!" He halted by the door, glared briefly at me, then, with the rebuking expression of an early Christian martyr, laid down his tools, stripped off the shirt, dropped it on the floor, picked up the tools, and strode majestically out to deal with the leak, buttocks clenched with determined zeal. I — Diana Gabaldon

The housewife is an unpaid worker in her husband's house in return for the security of being a permanent employee: hers is the reductio ad absurdum of the employee who accepts a lower wage in return for permanence of his employment. But the lowest paid employees can be and are laid off, and so are wives. They have no savings, no skills which they can bargain with elsewhere, and they must bear the stigma of having been sacked. — Germaine Greer

Gave so much time and thought to units - the Nation, the Race, Humanity-as-a-Whole - that it laid terrific burdens on humanity as individuals. To benefit the monster of Humanity-as-a-Whole, they even fought wars - which killed off humanity, individually, at a fearful rate. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

I believe that whether you love your job or hate your job, get laid off or are just in-between jobs, you deserve health care that can never be taken away. — Ron Wyden

The next day it's Virginia Woolf who wafts through. Hers is a
curiously insistent presence; take your eyes off her for a moment and
the next thing you know she's rearranging your syntax as though it
were cutlery improperly laid out for a seven-course meal with some
foreign dignitary who disdains your nation's table manners. — Kamila Shamsie

Today Carly Fiorina announced that she is running for president. Someone else bought 'CarlyFiorina' and posted 30,000 sad emoticons to represent all the people she laid off at Hewlett-Packard. I haven't seen that many sad, blank faces in one place since the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. — Jimmy Fallon

It is so easy to demonize free-market and the freedom to outsource and offshore because it is so much easier to see people being laid off in big bunches, which makes headlines, than to see them being hired in fives and tens by small and medium-sized companies, which rarely makes news. — Thomas L. Friedman

Of those who had been eyewitnesses at Kill Devil Hills the morning of the 17th, John T. Daniels was much the most effusive about what he had felt. "I like to think about it now," he would say in an interview years later. "I like to think about that first airplane the way it sailed off in the air . . . as pretty as any bird you ever laid your eyes on. I don't think I ever saw a prettier sight in my life." But it would never have happened, Daniels also stressed, had it not been for the two "workingest boys" he ever knew. It wasn't luck that made them fly; it was hard work and common sense; they put their whole heart and soul and all their energy into an idea and they had the faith. — David McCullough

The shiny paint laid on by curiosity's hand has worn off. What thing better can a man know than the love of Christ, which passes knowledge? — Jim Elliot

Programs like food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and job retraining help Americans get back on their feet when they are down and out and laid off through no fault of their own. — Hank Johnson

All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble. — Janis Joplin

This is so cool!" Nico said, jumping up and down in the driver's seat. "Is this really the sun? I thought Helios and Selene were the sun and moon gods. How come sometimes it's them and sometimes it's you and Artemis?"
"Downsizing," Apollo said. "The Romans started it. They couldn't afford all those temple sacrifices, so they laid off Helios and Selene and folded their duties into our job descriptions. My sis got the moon. I got the sun. It was pretty annoying at first, but at least I got this cool car."
"But how does it work?" Nico asked. "I thought the sun was a big fiery ball of gas!"
Apollo chuckled and ruffled Nico's hair. "That rumor probably got started because Artemis used to call me a big fiery ball of gas. — Rick Riordan

Shy Gifts
Shy gifts that come to us from a world that may not
even know we're here. Windfalls, scantlings.
Breaking a bough like breathy flute-notes, a row
of puffed white almond-blossom, the word in hiding
among newsprint that has other news to tell.
In a packed aisle at the supermarket, I catch
the eye of a wordless one-year-old, whale-blue,
unblinking. It looks right through me, recognising
what? Wisely mistrustful but unwisely
impulsive as we are, we take these givings
as ours and meant for us - why else so leap
to receive them? - and go home lighter
of step to the table set, the bed turned down, the book
laid open under the desk-lamp, pages astream
with light like angels' wings, arched for take-off. — David Malouf

I was teaching airplane mechanics when I realized it was more fun to make them laugh. I was laid off one more time and I never looked back, although it was nice to have a steady paycheck and benefits. — Alonzo Bodden

Valetta," he said, thinking she still looked good, then abandoning his Spidey sense long enough to let her take him in her arms, the skin of her bare shoulder in a halter top cool against his shoulder, the lady most definitely giving off that heavy 1978 Spencer's smell of love candles and sandlewood incense but, laid over top of it, the stink of cigarette, the instant-potatoes smell you might find in the interior of a beat-to-shit Toronado. "Damn. — Michael Chabon

Well, technically we make money off of the guys trying to get laid by the sexy drunk girls." He — Eve Jagger

God squeezed Day and held him close as he shot his first jet of come. God growled deep in his throat with his teeth still latched on to Day's throat. He stopped biting only to pull the tender flesh into his mouth and suck as hard as he could until he stopped coming inside Day's spasming hole. God stilled and caught his breath, his cock still buried inside his lover. He felt Day lick at the sweat on his neck and unhook his legs from around his back. God slid his hands down Day's back and palmed both of his ass cheeks, lifting him off his cock. Day hissed, and God gently laid him back down on the damp sheets. God was exhausted. He removed the condom and dropped it in the wastebasket beside the bed before dropping down beside Day. "You — A.E. Via

... it is a matter of record that in our sorry age with its prejudice in favour of male children many poor families donated to their favoured cult-temple the daughters they could not afford to marry off or feed, in the hope that they might live in holiness as servants or, if they were fortunate, as dancers; vain hopes, alas, for in many cases the priests in charge of these temples were men in whom the highest standards of probity were mysteriously absent, a failing which laid them open to offers of cash on the nail for the young virgins and not-quite-virgins and once-again-virgins in their charge. Thus Abraham the spice merchant was able to use his widespread Southern connections to harvest a new crop, entered in his most secret ledgers as 'Garam Masala Super Quality', and also, I note with some embarrassment, 'Extra Hot Chilli Peppers: Green. — Salman Rushdie

I had panels - roundtables in the district - and the stories that were told are really difficult to accept. People who have diabetes who can't get insurance because of a preexisting condition; others who were laid off and the have no place to turn. — Sander Levin

I would argue that masturbation is the human animal's most important adaptation. The very cornerstone of our technological civilization. Our hands evolved to grip tools, all right - including our own. You see, thinkers, inventors, and scientists are usually geeks, and geeks have a harder time getting laid than anyone. Without the built-in sexual release valve provided by masturbation, it's doubtful that early humans would have ever mastered the secrets of fire or discovered the wheel. And you can bet that Galileo, Newton, and Einstein never would have made their discoveries if they hadn't first been able to clear their heads by slapping the salami (or "knocking a few protons off the old hydrogen atom"). The same goes for Marie Curie. Before she discovered radium, you can be certain she first discovered the little man in the canoe. — Ernest Cline

Somehow I had a premonition of what I so often felt at later times: that you did not have the right to open a single book unless you engaged to read them all. With every line you read, you were breaking off a portion of the world. Before books, the world was intact, and afterwards it might be restored to wholeness once again. But how was I, who could not read, to take up the challenge laid down by all of them? — Rainer Maria Rilke

I've laid out my economic plans. I want to grow the economy. That's why I have plans for jobs and raising incomes. I do want to go after bad actors on and off Wall Street, because I think companies that take money from federal, state, and local governments and then pick up and move should have to pay that back. — Hillary Clinton

Jack stares at me blankly. 'A what?' he asks.

I choke back the laugh. 'A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don't seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.'

'What are you talking about?' Jack asks, 'A boy? She's just a kid.'

I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. 'She's seventeen. She's not a kid anymore.'

Jack looks like he's about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. 'If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I'm going to kill him,' he says.

Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn't require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London. — Sarah Alderson

As he walked past the newsstand, he couldn't help sniffing the air, searching for hints of bacon, coconut, and vanilla. Combined with John's declaration that he needed to get laid, he couldn't get that smell off his mind, or her adorable freckles, or the broken expression on her face as she blew past him on the sidewalk. Such a marvelous creature deserved someone who understood her talents- someone like him, perhaps. — Amy E. Reichert

After 'Psychonauts,' we could have laid off half our team so that we'd have more money and time to sign 'Brutal Legend.' But doing so would have meant breaking up a team that had just learned how to work well together. And what message would that have sent to our employees? It would say that we're not loyal to them, and that we don't care. — Tim Schafer

Nine out of ten humans killed? And you're not bothered."
A look of mysterious thoughtfulness crossed his face. "A virus can be useful to a species by thinning it out," he said.
A scream cut the air. It sounded nonhuman.
He took his eyes off the water and looked around. "Hear that pheasant? That's what I like about the Bighorn River," he said.
"Do you find viruses beautiful?"
"Oh, yeah," he said softly. "Isn't it true that if you stare into the eyes of a cobra, the fear has another side to it? The fear is lessened as you begin to see the essence of the beauty. Looking at Ebola under an electron microscope is like looking at a gorgeously wrought ice castle. The thing is so cold. So totally pure." He laid a perfect cast on the water, and eddies took the fly down. (92) — Richard Preston

For lunch, Tsipis led them to Hassadar's most exclusive locale - the official dining room of the Count's Residence, overlooking the Square. The remarkable spread which the staff laid on hinted that Miles had sent down a few urgent behind-the-scenes instructions for the care and feeding of his . . . gardener. Mark confirmed this after dessert when Kareen led Enrique and the widow off to see the garden and fountain in the Residence's inner courtyard, and he and Tsipis lingered over the exquisite vintage of Vorkosigan estate-bottled wine usually reserved for visits from Emperor Gregor. — Lois McMaster Bujold

For every round peg society forces into a square hole, another brick is laid, building the walls that will eventually close us off from the possibility of living with purpose and passion. — Kathryn Perez

And I'm sure they all played by the rules, just liked I did. By the way, when I got laid off four and a half years ago, the stock of my company was at an all-time high. Our CEO retired. He was paid $70 million. Maybe now that is only worth $30 million. Or maybe in a few years if he plays by the rules it will be worth $130 million. I'll still be worth nothing. And I won't have a home or my children. You see why I wonder about playing by the rules? Because I always do. As a result, you're standing where I sleep. — Ken Goldstein

Everyone gets laid off and everyone in Hollywood gets unemployment for six months while they're looking for a new job. So I would just do stand-up for six months and think I was really making it, and when my unemployment ran out, I had to get another job immediately. — Anthony Jeselnik

even if we laid off 100 percent of the employees, the infrastructure costs would still kill us without a sharper sales ramp. — Ben Horowitz

The first of June! The Kings are off to the seashore tomorrow, and I'm free. Three months' vacation - how I shall enjoy it!" exclaimed Meg, coming home one warm day to find Jo laid upon the sofa in an unusual state of exhaustion, while Beth took off her dusty boots, and Amy made lemonade for the refreshment of the whole party. — Louisa May Alcott

Actually, all gifts have been given for reasons of temporal use and need and they will surely pass away at the end of the present dispensation. Love, however, will never be cut off. It works in us and for us, and not simply in this life. For when the burden of physical need has been laid aside in the time to come it will endure, more effectively, more excellently, forever unfailing, clinging to God with more fire and zeal through all the length of incorruption. — John Cassian

On the Gallows Once
Kofi Awoonor

I crossed quite a few
of your rivers, my gods,
into this plain where thirst reigns
I heard the cry of mourners
the long cooing of the African wren at dusk
the laughter of the children at dawn
had long ceased
night comes fast in our land
where indeed are the promised vistas
the open fields, blue skies, the singing birds
and abiding love?
History records acts
of heroism, barbarism
of some who had power
and abused it massively
of some whose progenitors
planned for them
the secure state of madness
from which no storm can shake them;
of some who took the last ships
disembarked on some far-off shores and forgot
of some who simply laid down the load
and went home to the ancestors — Kofi Awoonor

Wager: It's good to see you smiling.

Connor: There's not a whole hell of a lot to smile about. Some freak of nature attacked me today, my best friend has run off with the key, and I need to get laid. — Sylvia Day

I separated the joints, the arm joints, the leg joints, and had to do two boilings. I think I used four boxes of Soilex for each one, put in the upper portion of the body and boiled that for about two hours and then the lower portion for another two hours. The Soilex removes all the flesh, turns it into a jelly like-like substance and it just rinses off. Then I laid the clean bones in a light bleach solution, left them there for a day and spread them out on either newspaper or cloth and let them dry for about a week in the bedroom. — Jeffrey Dahmer

...having a child is like casting off your own childhood forever. It's as if it's only then that you really grasp what it means to be a man. You're scared too that all your weaknesses will be laid bare, because fatherhood demands more than you can give.... I always felt I had to earn your love, because I loved you so, so much. — Nina George

In a 91-part series of sob stories from the laid off and the disgruntled, The NY Times is in the midst of bemoaning 'the downsizing of America' - better known as 'the whining of America.' The cause of all the heartache, in the esteemed newspaper of record's view, appears to be heartless corporate chieftains - as well as capitalism itself. Americans are moving forward, despite shackles. The shackles I am referring to are not NAFTA, not corporations. They are, instead, the barriers imposed by our own government. — Rush Limbaugh

I can't change what happened, but I can sure as shit get pissed that you want to cut me off because of it. You laid out your rules and I adjusted to accommodate them, but you won't make even a tiny adjustment for me. You have to meet me halfway. — Sylvia Day

First National Bank laid off 1,000 people; where do they go? There are no jobs for them. So we are having serious economic problems in this country. We are in a real economic crisis. — Richard M. Daley

When you have a large amount of the workforce being laid off, some of them have no other choice but to go out there and invent something. — Daymond John

I'm a fucking adult. I can eat a cookie before dinner if I want to." Sure, keep telling yourself that. Knowing if his mother had been alive, she would have scolded him, he tiptoed to the airtight container and took out one cookie. Come on, one little frosted cookie wouldn't hurt. He hesitated, and then he grabbed a second cookie in case the first didn't take the edge off. He bit down into the sugary goodness and groaned. Hell, yeah, this is better than sex. He choked on the last bit of cookie and grabbed his beer to wash it down. Fuck, he needed to get laid if a cookie was better than sex. How long had it been? — Carrie Ann Ryan

Why multiply instances? It is written, the Heavens and the Earth shall fade away like a Vesture; which indeed they are: the Time-vesture of the Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly exists, whatsoever represents Spirit to Spirit, is properly a Clothing, a suit of Raiment, put on for a season, and to be laid off. Thus in this one pregnant subject of CLOTHES, rightly understood, is included all that men have thought, dreamed, done, and been: the whole External Universe and what it holds is but Clothing; and the essence of all Science lies in the PHILOSOPHY OF CLOTHES. — Thomas Carlyle

Can you think of an older adult who hates their career? They may be good at it and it makes them a lot of money at it, but the passion is not there. This person's lack of passion will eventually begin to erode the quality of their work. These are the types of people who get laid off first. A wise person will pay attention to their passions as they progress in their career. If they feel the fire dying, then it is time to begin training for a new career or a shift within the career. — Michael G. Johnson

Turning off or tuning out people was my highly developed art. The custom of letting obedient children be seen but not heard was so agreeable to me that I went one step further: Obedient children should not see or hear if they chose not to do so. I laid a handful of attention on my face and tuned up the sounds in the church. — Maya Angelou

It is a general idea, that when taxes are once laid on, they are never taken off. — Thomas Paine

He's as smooth as a fresh-laid turd and gives off the same smell. — Ian Rankin

Extending federal unemployment insurance is vital for millions of Americans laid off through no fault of their own, and it serves as an important economic stimulus. — Sander Levin

But what worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death." He laid his glasses on the bed and took off his watch and chain. "What worries me," he went on, "is that out of so much hatred for the military, out of fighting them so much and thinking about them so much, you've ended up as bad as they are. And no ideal in life is worth that much baseness. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Aidan: "From the moment I laid eyes on her she was trouble to my concentration, my libido, and my mental health. After six weeks of pursuit, I'd trapped her between my upraised arms against a book case, somewhere betwixt Shakespeare and Voltaire. "I want the witchcraft in your lips," I'd whispered. Instead of arguing, she grabbed me by the ears. She'd been soft lips, liberal tongue and nipping teeth. I'd contributed a willing body and a vulgar groan. She'd drawn away, licked her lips and ducked underneath my arms. When she was about three yards from me, she's tilted her head up like a siren on the bow of a ship and pursed a devil-may-care smile at me before she bowed. She'd challenged me to pursue her, and I'd intended to, but when I pushed off, the bookcase fell backwards. I tumbled into a heap of literary tombs. I could still hear her laughing when the library's elevator door chimed closed. — Elizabeth Marx

I went down to the lobby and slipped the catch and then took a shower and put my pajamas on and lay down on the bed. I could have slept for a week. I dragged myself up off the bed again and set the catch on the door, which I had forgotten to do, and walked through a deep hard snowdrift out to the kitchenette and laid out glasses and a bottle of liqueur Scotch I had been saving for a really high-class seduction. — Raymond Chandler

Lor blows in like he was plastered to the other side of the door.
"Escort the kid to clean the fuck up and get that stench off her."
"Sure thing, boss."
He scowls at me.
I scowl right back.
Lor points through the glass floor. "See that blonde down there with the big tits? I was about to get laid."
"One, I'm too young to hear that kind of stuff, and two, I don't see you carrying a club to knock her over the head with, so how were you going to accomplish that?"
Behind me, Ryodan laughs.
"You're ruining my night, kid."
"Ditto. Ain't life at Chester's grand. — Karen Marie Moning

If in large part we were concerned only with making it through another day without getting laid off, there was a smaller part just hoping to leave for the night without contributing to someone's lifetime of hurt. — Joshua Ferris

Your dad just threw down and I just laid it out," Shy started when I didn't speak. "Now's the time to share, Tabby."
"I love you," I whispered.
"Good, but don't say that shit to me three feet away. Get the fuck over here."
I launched off on a foot, took one step and flew through the air. Shy, as he'd been doing awhile, caught me. I wrapped my limbs around him and looked down in his beautiful green eyes. "I love you," I whispered again. — Kristen Ashley

What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth. — Mark Twain

If Flynn hadn't known his older brother for the addicted, lying sack of shit he was, he might have believed the pain he saw in that gaze, might have trusted that Connor had finally seen the error of his ways and was going to change his life and step out of their father's shadow. But Connor usually only had an epiphany if it got him laid, increased his bank balance, or severely pissed off Rupert. — M.A. Grant

What he did instead was clean his shelter. He had been sleeping on the foam pad that had come with the survival pack and he straightened everything up and hung his bag out in the sun to air-dry and then used the hatchet to cut the ends of new evergreen boughs and laid them like a carpet in the shelter. As soon as he brought the boughs inside and the heat from the fire warmed them they gave off the most wonderful smell, filled the whole shelter with the odor of spring, and he brought the bag back inside and spread the pad and bag and felt as if he were in a new home. The berries boiled first and he added snow water to them and kept them boiling until he had a kind of mush in the pan. By that time the meat had cooked and he set it off to the side and tasted the berry — Gary Paulsen

I've been pulled out of my nice new car and laid out in the street by the police, interrogated and then have them get in the car and roll off leaving me lying in the street without even saying 'Get up.' The humiliation that they can put on a black man because they determine that you ain't got the money. — Ice-T

He shifted his body off of mine and tuckled me close against his warmth. I laid my head on his chest and listened to the comforting sound of his beating heart. Noah ran his hand through my hair. I'm glad you told me. This needs to be right for you and i'll wait, for as long as you need. — Katie McGarry

But if sleep it was, of what nature, we can scarcely refrain from asking, are such sleeps as these? Are they remedial measures - trances in which the most galling memories, events that seem likely to cripple life for ever, are brushed with a dark wing which rubs their harshness off and gilds them, even the ugliest, and basest, with a lustre, an incandescence? Has the finger of death to be laid on the tumult of life from time to time lest it rend us asunder? Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living? And then what strange powers are these that penetrate our most secret ways and change our most treasured possessions without our willing it? Had Orlando, worn out by the extremity of his suffering, died for a week, and then come to life again? And if so, of what nature is death and of what nature life? — Virginia Woolf

We need to get you laid."
Despite the fact she couldn't see my face, my brow furrowed. "How is that going to help?"
"Rebound sex is exactly what you need right now, sweaty, dirty, work-your-frustration-out sex. In fact, I have the perfect guy in mind - "
I jolted up quickly at the sound of a firm tapping. I looked over at the window to see Kacey's sun kissed face, his shades resting at the edge of his long nose, baby blue eyes fixed on me.
I placed my hand over my thumping heart. "You ass."
"Bitch?"
"Not you, Jayne." I climbed off my bed. "Kay and Ty are here."
"Speak of the devil, and his sexy ass will most definitely appear. — Elizabeth Morgan

Practice this first." He laid his hands on her shoulders. "Have a good trip. Enjoy your vacation."
"You didn't say I had to speak to him." She blew out a breath at Roarke's calm stare. "All right, all right, it's worth it. Have a good trip." She stretched her lips into a smile. "Enjoy your vacation. Asshole. I'll leave off the asshole, I just wanted to say it now."
"Understood. — J.D. Robb

Ben Battle was a soldier bold, and used to war's alarms, But a cannon-ball took off his legs, so he laid down his arms. — Thomas Hood

I love all of you Ember - the ferocious, beautiful girl I first laid eyes on, the fiery girl who punched me in the face when I threw off her sheets, the penitent girl I found curled up in the shower, the curious girl who questioned a wanted man's guilt, the brave girl who pushed me down when she saw a gun, and the secretive girl who thinks she needs to carry the world on her shoulders. — Laura Thalassa

You planned this? Why?"
"Yes." He walked over to one of the picnic tables and grabbed a backpack, which just happened to be there. He pulled a blanket from the pack and laid it down on the sand next to her.
She jumped up and away from him with her fins in her hands. She held them up like a weapon, not taking her eyes off of him. He saw her reaction and it didn't take long to figure out the thoughts running through her mind.
"Hey! No. It's not what you think." He stepped closer, but she swung her fins at him and whacked him across the arm. "Ouch!" He looked at her like she was insane.
"Stay away from me. This is so not happening. I'll hit you again, I swear. — S. Jackson Rivera

The only way to tell off an asshole was face-to-face and to look fantastic doing it. So, here she was, with perfect makeup, hair done in a riot of waves that had taken a ridiculously long time to create, and a brand new screw you and the horse you rode in on dress laid out on her bed. — Roberta Pearce

At every other workplace in the nation - even Mal-Mart! - workers are being laid off. But no one at any of the bloated government bureaucracies ever need fear receiving a pink slip. All 64,750 employees at the department of Health and Human Services are apparently absolutely crucial to the smooth functioning of the department. — Ann Coulter

You know better than I," he said, "that all courts-martial are farces and that you're really paying for the crimes of
other people, because this time we're going to win the war at any price. Wouldn't you have done the same in my place?"
General Moncada got up to clean his thick horn-rimmed glasses on his shirttail. "Probably," he said. "But what
worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death." He laid his glasses on
the bed and took off his watch and chain. "What worries me," he went on "is that out of so much and thinking about them so much, you've ended up as bad as they are. And no ideal in life is worth that much baseness." He took off his wedding ring and the medal of the Virgin of Help and put them alongside his glasses and watch.
"At this rate," he concluded, "you'll not only be the most despotic and bloody dictator in our history, but you'll shoot
my dear friend Ursula in an attempt to pacify your conscience. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I had a terrible motorcycle accident, in San Francisco as matter of fact. Doing a picture called ... oh, this is terrible. It's a very well-known film and I can't remember the name. That's what happens when you get older ... I fell off a bridge in San Francisco and was laid up for two years. — William Lucking

I'm in show business. I'm not like a poor factory worker who'd been laid off. — Woody Allen

We have seen numerous instances in which American businesses have brought in foreign skilled workers after having laid off skilled American workers, simply because they can get the foreign workers more cheaply. It has become a major means of circumventing the costs of paying skilled American workers or the costs of training them. — Ronald Reagan

It was not just the drink, though, that was making me happy, but the tenderness of things, the simple goodness of the world. This sunset, for instance, how lavishly it was laid on, the clouds, the light on the sea, that heartbreaking, blue-green distance, laid on, all of it, as if to console some lost suffering waybarer. I have never really got used to being on this earth. Somethings I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and other, grimmer skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, off on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. And the ones who were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? No, they would have become extinct long ago. How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was meant to contain us? — John Banville

When I was working at the Sprint store, I got laid off. I was bummed out, but I stayed positive. I used the money I had earned while working there to make my first album. Without that job, maybe 'Corazon Sin Cara' would never had been made. It's a very inspirational story. — Prince Royce

Being a conservative union member is almost like being an actor in Hollywood: You don't dare say it, or you might be injured on the job, or you might be laid off, or your family might have something happen to them. — Rush Limbaugh

The earth's round, like an orange, but this map is like its skin, cut off in ovals, north to south, laid flat and stretched a bit at the top and bottom. A Dutchman called Mercator invented the way to do this accurately twenty years ago. It's the first accurate world map. — James Clavell

Hazel stabbed him again, and both of Trenton's feet came off the floor, but he didn't make a sound. "And that is why I waited for your girl. So you wouldn't cry. Damn, Cami takes your dick every night, and it's way bigger than a sixteen gauge."
I frowned. "Uncalled for. You need to get laid. You've been super in-apropos lately."
Hazel jutted out her lip. "Tell me about it!"
Trenton wore a wry smile. "But she's right, baby doll. I'm way bigger than a sixteen gauge. — Jamie McGuire

He immediately took her in his arms and cut off her stays. She didn't move. He shook her. "Artemis." Her head flopped back and forth limply. Makepeace laid a hand on his arm. "Your Grace." He ignored the other man. "Diana." "Your Grace, I'm sorry - " He swung back his arm and slapped her face, the sound echoing across the water. She choked. Immediately he flipped her so that her face was over the gunwale of the boat. She coughed and a great stream of dirty water fountained out of her mouth. He'd never seen such a wonderful sight in his life. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Aaron laid a hand on [Winn's] shoulder. "Winston, we're both adults. A duck charity every week? Is that what she told you as a child? Say the words with me: 'coven meeting.'"
"No..."
"And the meetings on All Hallows Eve, the solstices, all special meetings for duck wetland emergencies?"
"Glee club," Winn said weakly.
"Right. I often take off all my clothes in the moonlight and dance for glee club. — Scott Rhine

But in more than a few cases, you can draw a straight line from a cop being laid off or a union worker having his or her pension slashed back to the week of 2008 when a handful of Lehman executives took a payoff to mark down their own inventory. — Matt Taibbi

Lesson number one: "Not my problem" is not a philosophy. It's a mental illness. Right up there with pessimism. Other people's problems are our problems. If your neighbor is laid off, you may feel as if you've dodged the bullet, but you haven't. The bullet hit you as well. You just don't feel the pain yet. Or as Ruut Veenhoven told me: "The quality of a society is more important than your place in that society." In other words, better to be a small fish in a clean pond than a big fish in a polluted lake. — Eric Weiner

Sophie, you saw Alice's transformation."
I nodded. "And the murder of my great-grandfather. Weird it showed me that when I've had so many other awful things happen directly to me," I said, beginning to tick them off on my fingers. "Elodie getting killed, having to kill Alice, escaping a burning building with the help of a ghost ... " And then, because both my parents looked so deflated, I added, "Oh, and this really heinous pageboy haircut in sixth grade."
A few wan smiles appeared, but I think it was just to humor me.
"Yes, but that was the act that was directly responsible for all of those other horrible events," Dad said. "Well, except for the haircut. I suspect that can be laid at your mother's door."
"James!" Mom protested, but I swear I heard affection behind it. I think Dad did, too, because his lips quirked upward briefly. — Rachel Hawkins

Archbishop. Why do I never read the lesson?"
"I beg your pardon, ma'am?"
"In church. Everybody else gets to read and one never does. It's not laid down, is it? It's not off-limits?"
"Not that I'm aware, ma'am."
"Good. Well in that case I'm going to start. Leviticus, here I come. Goodnight."
The archbishop shook his head and went back to Strictly Come Dancing. — Alan Bennett

Theories:
*During the off-months for the visitors, which are the on-months for the oysters, are the oysters packed in ice or tinned, and shipped to Paris?

*During the off-months for the visitors, which are the on-months for the oysters, do the serving staff shuck shells?
Or
*During the off-months for the visitors, which are the on-months for the oysters, are the restaurant, and the oysters, abandoned, and the staff laid off? — Joanna Walsh

She tapped on the window with her embossed hairbrush. They were too far off to hear. The drone of the trees was in their ears; the chirp of birds; other incidents of garden life, inaudible, invisible to her in the bedroom, absorbed them. Isolated on a green island, hedged about with snowdrops, laid with a counterpane of puckered silk, the innocent island floated under her window. Only George lagged behind. — Virginia Woolf

better?' 'Don't be impatient,' said Snow-white, 'I will help you,' and she pulled her scissors out of her pocket, and cut off the end of the beard. As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he laid hold of a bag which lay amongst the roots of the tree, and which was full of gold, and lifted it up, grumbling — Jacob Grimm