Let Them Off The Hook Quotes & Sayings

Dr K. relishes the pleasures (but only, as he notes himself, the pleasures) of being declassed. — W.G. Sebald

Bass players are always the underdogs of the band, but I made sure that I was never viewed as one. I went out of my way to steal as much limelight as I could. — Peter Hook

My only stake was the hook I shot in the moon, trying to capture stardom on my way to heaven. Without bravado. Just footsteps plodding me along till my big show. My showstopper. The one where I landed in a place without gravity. — Juliet Castle

We are assailed by the temptation of the love of money. If you wish to acquire riches ? they are the bait of the fishers hook ? by greed, by trafficking, by violence, by ruse or by excessive manual work that deprives you of leisure for the service of God ? in a word by any other means ? if you have desired to pile up gold or silver, remember what the Gospel says, 'Fool! They will snatch your soul away during the night! Who will get your hoard' (cf. Lk. 12:20)? Again, 'He piles up money without knowing to whom it will go' (Ps. 39:6). — Pachomius The Great

Not that this let me off the hook. My younger self had come back to shock my older self with what that self had been, or was, or was sometimes capable of being. And only recently I'd been going on about how the witnesses to our lives decrease, and with them our essential corroboration. Now I had some all too unwelcome corroboration of what I was, or had been. If only this had been the document Veronica had set light to. — Julian Barnes

I like psycho chicks ... Yeah, you hook up with a psycho, you're gonna learn something. First thing you learn is how to sleep with one eye open. — Alonzo Bodden

This hook nose and crab meister attitude has gotten me every job I've ever had. And more divorces than I care to remember. — Norman Fell

One of the men gave Butch a bunch of volts with a stun gun. The Rangeman didn't move fast enough, and Butch grabbed the gun and threw it across the room.
"Hunh," Rangeman guy said.
"Yeah," I said. "Been there, done that."
"Are you sure he's human?"
"Maybe you could hook a chain to the FlexiCuffs on his ankles and drag him behind your car," I said.
"We tried that once, and Ranger didn't like it," the guy said. "You do something twice that Ranger doesn't like, and you're out of a job and damaged. — Janet Evanovich

Nick did not want to go in there now. He felt a reaction against deep wading with the water deepening up under his armpits, to hook big trout in places impossible to land them. In the swamp the banks were bare, the big cedars came together overhead, the sun did not come through, except in patches; in the fast deep water, in the half light, the fishing would be tragic. In the swamp fishing was a tragic adventure. Nick did not want it. He did not want to go down the stream any farther today. He — Ernest Hemingway,

I don't need you sensitive, Skulduggery. I need you aloof and irresponsible and arrogant. That's why I love you. That's why I let you hang out with me."
"I'm truly blessed."
She grinned. "You love me, too. Once you admit it, everything will be better."
"They're about to hook up the Cube to the Accelerator," he said, and turned and walked off.
She followed. "You can't run from your feelings."
"I can walk from them. — Derek Landy

I will put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way which thou camest. 'Destroyer' thou hast embraced, and Abaddon shalt thou be. From the furnace of the Kiln wast thou taken and to the furnace of Hell shalt thou return. — Donovan M. Neal

You never would get through to the end of being a father, no matter where you stored your mind or how many steps in the series you followed. Nit even if you died. Alive or dead a thousand miles distant, you were always going to be on the hook for work that was neither a procedure nor a series of steps but, rather, something that demanded your full, constant attention without necessarily calling you to do, perform, or say anything at all. — Michael Chabon

While I had no intention of hooking up with him, I still wanted him to want to hook up with me.
It was the principle of the thing, after all. — Kimberly Raye

So I must say it quickly;
Whoever is in your life,
those that harm you,
those that help you;
those whom you know
and those whom you do not know --
let them off the hook,
help them off the hook.
Recognize the hook.
You are listening to radio resistance. — Leonard Cohen

Noam Chomsky skittles and skithers all over the political landscape to distract the reader's attention from the plain truth. — Sidney Hook

It was worth it," Faye says after school while she walks me to my car. "It's not fair that you take all the shit for this while the guys get to walk around like nothing happened. They're just as much to blame."
"I'm the one who started it," I say, kicking a beer cap across the parking lot with my shoe. "If I hadn't started it, nothing would have happened.
"Don't let them off the hook so easily," Faye snaps. "They were coming to you. It takes two to have sex. So don't defend them. — Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

By hook or by crook this peril too shall be something that we remember — Homer

My interests are guitars, cars, and vacation. I've been playing guitar all my life. My dad was a professional guitarist, but I'm terrible, which lets me off the hook, so I just play for myself. — Josh Hartnett

They sat in the little diningroom and ate. She'd put on music, a violin concerto. The phone didnt ring.
Did you take it off the hook?
No, she said.
Wires must be down.
She smiled. I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think.
Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.
Do you remember the last time it snowed here?
No, I cant say as I do. Do you?
Yes I do.
When was it.
It'll come to you.
Oh.
She smiled. They ate. — Cormac McCarthy

It's every boy's dream to play Captain Hook. — Rhys Ifans

To many an upright poor person, it seems needless to invent a god who will wash the feet of beggars and exalt those who do not care to labor. What is this but a denial of thrift and a sickly obsession with the victim? The so-called common people are quite able to penetrate this ruse ("The good lord must indeed love the poor, since he made so many of them"). Many decent people are made uneasy by the constant injunction to give alms and to dwell among those who have lost their self-respect. They can also see the hook sticking out of the bait: abandon this useless life, leave your family, and follow the prophet who says that the world is soon to pass away. Such an injunction coupled with an implicit or explicit "or else" is repulsive to many conservatives who believe in self-reliance and personal integrity, and who distrust "charity," just as it was repulsive to the early socialists who did not think that poverty was an ideal or romantic or ennobled state. — Christopher Hitchens

Folks who thrive in God's grace give grace easily, but the self-critical person becomes others-critical. We "love" people the way we "love" ourselves, and if we are not good enough, then no one is. We keep ourselves brutally on the hook, plus our husbands, our kids, our friends, our churches, our leaders, anyone "other." When we impose unrealistic expectations on ourselves, it's natural to force them on everyone else. If we're going to fail, at least we can expect others to fail; and misery loves company, right? — Jen Hatmaker

The realization had brought with it a sudden stark insight into another kind of glamour. It was quite a long time ago now, but he saw it quite clearly: how the media and the advertisers had created their own kind of glamour to seduce whole populations into a kind of insanity. Food that was bad for people, drink that turned them into mindless thugs, countless tons of useless rubbish, all dressed up by advertising glamour to appear like things people couldn't live without. And the human race had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, becoming....[c]onsumers of limitless glamour, all of it ultimately worthless. — Kate Thompson

Every thought, feeling, and emotion creates a molecule known as a neuropeptide. Neuropeptides travel throughout your body and hook onto receptor sites of cells and neurons. Your brain takes in the information, converts it into chemicals, and lets your whole body know if there's trouble in the world or cause for celebration. Your body is directly influenced as these molecules course through the bloodstream, delivering the energetic effect of whatever your brain is thinking and feeling. — Deepak Chopra

Then his mate rolled her eyes and tossed her hair behind her shoulders. "I swear boys never grow up, no matter how hard they try." The girls in the group laughed at that, and Bay joined them. Adam cleared his throat but didn't tug Bay close like he'd like to. He had to show that they were strong on their own as well as together while they were training. "That's a bit sexist, don't you think?" he teased. Bay narrowed her eyes a bit more then winked. "Don't get me started on sexism in a werewolf Pack, oh mate of mine. I'll let you off the hook because you happen to be holding the cutest baby in the world. — Carrie Ann Ryan

That's the reason forgiveness is divine. 'Cause someone wrongs us, we live with that wrong right alongside them, but it's us who has to find the strength to let them off the hook. If they work for it, ask for it, only you have the power to offer it to them so their soul can be less heavy. And the right thing to do is use that power. — Kristen Ashley

It is so important not to let ourselves off the hook or to become apathetic or cynical by telling ourselves that nothing works or makes a difference. Every day, light your small candle ... The inaction and actions of many human beings over a long time contributed to the crises our children face, and it is the action and struggle of many human beings over time that will solve them-with God's help. So every day, light your small candle. — Marian Wright Edelman

I think everybody who commits a violent killing is in some way crazy. But that doesn't mean we can let them off the hook for that. — Jane Velez-Mitchell

So you know it was a glorious battle, Hook, in which God favoured the English, but God's favour is a fickle thing.'
'Are you telling me He's not on our side?'
'I'm telling you that God is on the side of whoever wins, Hook. — Bernard Cornwell

Once you find the truth, no one can hurt you. You can let them off the hook. That is hard! Until then, keep distance, preserve the peace. Eventually it's like you weren't hurt. — Erich Schiffmann

People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know _about_ you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has happened to you and how all the decisions you have made have turned you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which has precious little to do with yours, and that lets you off the hook. No-one can touch you unless you yourself want them to. — Per Petterson

We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook? — Ellen Goodman

Something else emerges from this discussion about us as human individuals: we're not fixed, stable intellects riding along peering at the world through the lenses of our eyes like the pilots of people-shaped spacecraft. We are affected constantly by what's going on around us. Whether our flexibility is based in neuroplasticity or in less dramatic aspects of the brain, we have to start acknowledging that we are mutable, persuadable and vulnerable to clever distortions, and that very often what we want to be is a matter of constant effort rather than attaining a given state and then forgetting about it. Being human isn't like hanging your hat on a hook and leaving it there, it's like walking in a high wind: you have to keep paying attention. You have to be engaged with the world. — Nick Harkaway

We both [with Suzanne Collins ] felt strongly that you wouldn't want to age up the characters, no matter the age of the actors playing the roles. They should be playing the age that they are in the [Hunger Games] books. It would let people off the hook, if you said, "Well, instead of 12 to 18, why don't you make them 18 to 25 or 16 to 21?" If you don't stay true to the horror of the fact that they are 12 to 18, you're not doing justice to the book. — Nina Jacobson

And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth

And then you had to bring up reincarnation
Over a couple of beers the other night
And now I'm serving time for mistakes
Made by another in another lifetime

How long till my soul gets it right
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of galileo
King of night vision, king of insight
...
But then again it feels like some sort of inspiration
To let the next life off the hook
But she'll say "look what I had to overcome from my last life
I think I'll write a book — Indigo Girls

I've never been out of work in my whole life. — Peter Hook

To all the kids from the "special" reading class back in high school (the one where you tried to form words using wooden blocks)
PLEASE stop telling me that I can't blame an "inanimate object" for the off-the-hook gun violence in this country. YES! ... I CAN!!! I blame all the "inanimate objects" in Congress who refuse to pass sensible gun legislation because they're too chicken-shit to take on Wayne LaPierre and the gun lobby. — Quentin R. Bufogle

What many people don't know about 'Peter Pan' is that it's a very violent book and Hook is one of the most finely observed villains ever. — Eoin Colfer

For a long time," he said at last, "when I was small, I pretended to myself that I was the bastard of some great man. All orphans do this, I think," he added dispassionately."It makes life easier to bear, to pretend that it will not always be as it is, that someone will come and restore you to your rightful place in the world."
He shrugged.
"Then I grew older, and knew that this was not true. No one would come to rescue me. But then-" he turned his head and gave Jamie a smile of surpassing sweetness.
"Then I grew older still, and discovered that after all, it was true. I am the son of a great man."
The hook touched Jamie's hand, hard and capable.
"I wish for nothing more. — Diana Gabaldon

I'm telling you, go hook up. It isn't like you'll ever see him again. Fun Florida Fling. Ha-ha, the three Fs!" I want to laugh, but I shake my head. "No way. That's all I need. To have sex, get pregnant or get an STD, or worse, catch feelings for the dude. He's obviously a player. — Toni Aleo

Red Hook Road made me happy, and happy to be alive. It took me out of my home on the coast of South Carolina, placed me in the town along Red hook Road, and changed me the way good books always do. — Pat Conroy

Most hiring managers interview a lot of people. So many that they generally have to go back to their notes to remember candidates - the exception being candidates with a strong hook. Sometimes these hooks are how people dress or their personality, but the best hook is a strong story that's work-related. — Travis Bradberry

Whether you do stand-up comedy or write a story, you have a duty to deliver. As a comedian, you walk out on stage, and you have a minute to hook them, or they'll start booing. As a writer, it's very similar. A reader doesn't have time to say, 'I'll give him 50 pages, as it's not very good yet, but I hope it'll get better.' — Mark Billingham

She drove home and grabbed the things she would need to check out a book: strong rope and a grappling hook, a compass, a flare gun, matches and a can of hair spray, a sharpened wooden spear, and, of course, her library card. — Joseph Fink

God seems to have left the receiver off the hook and time is running out. — Arthur Koestler

Possibly everyone now dead considered his own death as a freak accident, a mistake. Some bad luck caused it. Every enterprising man jack of them, and every sunlit vigorous woman and child, too, who had seemed so alive and pleased, was cold as a meat hook, and new chattering people trampled their bones unregarding, and rubbed their hands together and got to work improving their prospects till their own feet slipped and they went under themselves ... Every place was a tilting edge. — Annie Dillard

Giselle Speakmon's parents are totally devout. When I get in there and we hook up, there won't be any cribs for me either, Dad, because I reckon they'll make me wear one of those chastity belts, knowin' Jas is my brother and all. — Kristen Ashley

I fell in love with her partly because I understood what she was doing with her work. I fell because she understood what she was doing with it. I also fell in love because she was wearing a sexy black dress and silk stockings, the kind that hook with garters. — Stephen King

That's your doing. Now in order to affect that doing I am going to recommend that you learn another doing ... It may hook you to another doing and then you may realize that both doings are lies, unreal, and that to hinge yourself to either one is a waste of time, because the only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die. To arrive at that being is the note-doing of the self — Carlos Castaneda

Even when there's not a joke or a hook, the first line has to be good and snapem to attention. Songs ain't novels. You don't have 30 pages to slowly wrap somebody in. They're more like short stories or poems. If the first line hasn't grabbed them, you won't get to the second line. Once you've developed an audience, you may have some luxury and trust, so you don't have to knock 'em over the head with line one. — Dan Bern

Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream. For I am by no means confining you to fiction. If you would please me - and there are thousands like me - you would write books of travel and adventure, and research and scholarship, and history and biography, and criticism and philosophy and science. By so doing you will certainly profit the art of fiction. For books have a way of influencing each other. Fiction will be much the better for standing cheek by jowl with poetry and philosophy. — Virginia Woolf

The thing with Joy Division's music is that each member was playing like a separate line. We hardly ever played together; we all played separately. But when you put it together, it was like the ingredients in a cake. — Peter Hook

I don't get particularly precious about things like this, though. Like the record company said, "We need a radio edit that delivers the hook" - I don't even know what they consider the hook in that song ["Oh No"] - "that delivers the hook sooner." So I'm like, "Okay. I see that." And they were all walking on eggshells, like is this going to be sacrilegious to me or something, to mess with this art I've created? And I'm like, "Great. I get to tinker with it, I get to mess with my song some more." — Andrew Bird

INTRODUCTION The Puzzling Puzzles of Harry Harlow and Edward Deci In the middle of the last century, two young scientists conducted experiments that should have changed the world - but did not. Harry F. Harlow was a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin who, in the 1940s, established one of the world's first laboratories for studying primate behavior. One day in 1949, Harlow and two colleagues gathered eight rhesus monkeys for a two-week experiment on learning. The researchers devised a simple mechanical puzzle like the one pictured on the next page. Solving it required three steps: pull out the vertical pin, undo the hook, and lift the hinged cover. Pretty easy for you and me, far more challenging for a thirteen-pound — Daniel H. Pink

Goes to show you can't judge a fish by the hook in it's mouth. — Erin R. Bedford

The cautious wolf fears the pit, the hawk regards with suspicion the snare laid for her, and the fish the hook in its concealment. — Horace