Lien Quotes & Sayings

She hears the word bell, or orchard, or swallow, and she experiences a strange surprise, like the feel of a coin in the soil. These words make her wistful; they overwhelm her with longing. Not for her orchard, nor the bell in her church, nor the swallows that nest in the eaves of her house. For something else altogether, something she would have forgotten completely.
She wonders: Why should these words pierce me, if they are not the remains of a currency I once knew how to spend? — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

How terrible it is to recognize that one's brilliance rests solely upon the small-mindedness of others. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

In my very first term there was an issue that brought us [George Mitchell, Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd] together in a very deep, emotional, and personal level.It was called 'spousal impoverishment' and it meant that for one person [to go into] a nursing home, the family [ ], could go near bankruptcy, and then they'd end up with a lien on the family farm or the home. And so I wanted to change that. — Barbara Mikulski

When you are in school, your talents are without number, and your promise is boundless ... But at a certain point, you begin to feel your talents dropping away, like feathers from a molting bird. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

It is long settled in California that a landlord who resorts to self-help [such as removing a tenant's personal belongings and changing the locks, even though the tenant is still in legal possession of the property] instead of invoking the unlawful detainer procedure commits a forcible entry and detainer, and is liable for actual and, sometimes, punitive damages (see Jordan v Talbot (1961) 55 C2d 597), regardless of any lease provision giving the landlord the right to reenter on default (55 C2d at 604) or any lien the landlord may wish to exercise (55 C2d at 609). — Myron Moskovitz

If you wanted to kidnap someone, what would you use?" she asked Amit. They were lying in bed, with the lights off. To knock them unconscious. So that you could drag them into the back of your van."
Chloroform, I guess."
Really?" She brightened. It made her happy that the person she was marrying would commit crimes in the same way as she would. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

It is made up of one character each from the names of three of the major female protagonists of the novel (P'an Chin-lien, Li P'ing-erh, and P'ang Ch'un-mei) that would literally mean Gold Vase Plum; it can be semantically construed as The Plum in the Golden Vase, or Plum Blossoms in a Golden Vase; and it puns with three near homophones that might be rendered as The Glamour of Entering the Vagina. — David Tod Roy

I will see you bereft of all that you have, of home and happiness and beautiful things. I will see your nation cast down and your allies drawn away. I will see you as alone and friendless and wretched as am I; and then you may live as long as you like, in some dark and lonely corner of the earth, and I shall call myself content.
-Lien, Albino Celestial (Dragon) — Naomi Novik

A deeply felt novel ... The Story of Forgetting offers us both solace and illumination. Stefan Merrill Block possesses a singular mix of imagination, compassion, and scientific understanding; he is equally gifted at spinning fantastic tales as he is at bringing genetic histories to vivid life. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

Forget about lien about you behind your back and talking nonsense, some people can lie to you looking in your eyes ... — Honeya

Rights give rise to legal claims. Ultimately, the more rights animals are granted, the greater the legal lien exercised on their behalf against the liberty and property of people. — Ilana Mercer

Love, for too many men in our time, consists of sleeping with a seductive woman, one who is properly endowed with the right distribution of curves and conveniences and one upon whom a permanent lien has been acquired through the institution of marriage. — Ashley Montagu

Later in the week Mr Knox's Annie bicycled over to see Stoker and ask her to waive the lien which she had on her sister's services, as they would be required for the weekend.
'She's having dinner at half-past eight on Saturday,' said Annie, when seated with her sister and Stoker in the warm kitchen... Stoker was only too delighted to get a spy into the enemy's camp, and the kitchen had a long, delightful conversation about 'Madam', as Annie called Miss Grey, with a very poor imitation of her accent. — Angela Thirkell

Heather A. Slomski's stories are downright addictive. I kept promising myself to turn off the light after just one more, and then breaking that promise, beguiled by her cool, measured prose and by the surprises, tensions, and uncanny encounters simmering beneath its elegant surface. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

Yes, but everybody else gets more than us. — Dan O'Bannon

No man - prince, peasant, pope - has all the light, who says else is a mountebank. I claim no private lien on truth, only a liberty to seek it, prove it in debate, and to be wrong a thousand times to reach a single rightness. It is that liberty they fear. They want us to be driven to God like sheep, not running to him like lovers, shouting joy! — Morris West

Every youth movement presents itself as a loan to the future, and tries to call in its lien in advance, but when there is no future all loans are canceled. — Greil Marcus

Krys Lee has written a book of unforgettable stories, each one building on the other to create a complex, moving portrait of contemporary Korea and its diaspora. She guides us surely through the fallout of war, immigration, and financial crisis, always alert to the possibility of tenderness, transcendence, and even humor along the way. Lee is a writer who really understands loneliness, but her voice is so appealing, and her perceptions so wise, that we feel all the less lonely for knowing her characters and experiencing their lives. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

I, Patrick Lien, son of General Brendon Lien, do hereby swear my life to helping Princess Wilhelmina Korte reclaim her kingdom, no matter the cost. — Jodi Meadows

But illness does not always write itself upon the body, the sickness I search for is hidden deep within the brain. Sometimes it rises to the surface. Sometimes the face betrays what the body conceals. But there moments, these betrayals, last no longer than an instant. They come, they go, they pass over the patient, darkening and brightening his face like clouds gusting over a meadow. How is it possible, then, to tell what he is suffering when the visible signs of his inner disorder appear so fleetingly upon his face? — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

Ah," said Lien Shu, "it is true that a blind person cannot appreciate beautiful patterns and forms, and the deaf cannot appreciate the music of bells and drums. Yet blindness and deafness do not only afflict people physically, they also exist in the minds and attitudes of people. — Zhuangzi

Having a mind that cannot stay quiet, I've never been able to meditate without going stir-crazy. But give me a ball of dough and the not-so-distant dream of a piping hot cherry tart with a beautiful lattice-weave top and a generous sprinkling of confectioners sugar, and a feeling of serenity washes over me. My mind instantly hushes. — Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

This was the feeling that Ms. Hempel couldn't shake: a conviction that she spent her days among people at the age when they are most purely themselves. How could she not be depleted when she came home, having been exposed for hours, without protection, to all those thrumming radiant selves? Here they were, just old enough to have discovered their souls, but not yet dulled by the ordinary act of survival, not yet practiced in dissembling. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

That is what is marvelous about school, she realized: when you are in school, your talents are without number, and your promise is boundless. You ace a math test: you will one day work for NASA. The choir director asks you to sing a solo at the holiday concert: you are the next Mariah Carey. You score a goal, you win a poetry contest, you act in a play. And you are everything at once: actor, astronomer, gymnast, star. But at a certain point, you begin to feel your talents dropping away, like feathers from a molting bird. Cello lessons conflict with soccer practice. There aren't enough spots on the debating team. Calculus remains elusive. Until the day you realize that you cannot think of a single thing you are wonderful at. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

What I do know is, in little more than 30 years, we have gone from a nation where the "quiet enjoyment" of one's private property was a sacred right, to a day when the so-called property "owner" faces a hovering hoard of taxmen and regulators threatening to lien, foreclose, and "go to auction" at the first sign of private defiance of their collective will ... a relationship between government and private property rights which my dictionary defines as "fascism." — Vin Suprynowicz

What had been a perceived threat, a lien in a sense on future human behavior, was quickly reduced to a historical curiosity. — Arthur C. Clarke