Little Do They Know Quotes & Sayings

Do they have to be so public?" I say.
"She just kissed him." Al frowns at me. When he frowns, his thick eyebrows touch his eyelashes. "It's not like they're stripping naked."
"A kiss is not something you do in public."
Al, Will, and Christina all give me the same knowing smile.
"What?" I say.
"Your Abnegation is showing," says Christina. "The rest of us are all right with a little affection in public."
"Oh." I shrug. "Well ... I guess I'll have to get over it, then."
"Or you can stay frigid," says Will, his green eyes glinting with mischief. "You know. If you want. — Veronica Roth

Stones and bones; snow and frost; seeds and beans and polliwogs. Paths and twigs, assorted kisses, We all know who Daddy misses! His two little frogs of girls, that's who. They know where they are, do you, do you? — Alice Sebold

My life now consists of fragments where some are so blinding in their intensity that they make everything else indistinguishable. What shall I do with these glittering shards? There is no pattern; I can't make them fit. With each other, or with the whole that should be my life. It feels as if my existence was extinguished in a flash, and afterwards my universe became incomprehensible. Just shards and particles, which I carry with me wherever I go. They are sharp and they still hurt to touch. And they are so heavy. I know there is more - there are less intense fragments that I need to make it whole. I want to remember everything. But perhaps I need to give it more time. Allow myself some rest. Distance myself a little, to see if I can make out a pattern. And face the truth about what is really there. — Linda Olsson

Really, seeing the amount we give in charity, the wonder is there are any poor left. It is a comfort that there are. What should we do without them? Our fur-clad little girls! our jolly, red-faced squires! we should never know how good they were, but for the poor? Without the poor how could we be virtuous? We should have to go about giving to each other. And friends expect such expensive presents, while a shilling here and there among the poor brings to us all the sensations of a good Samaritan. Providence has been very thoughtful in providing us with poor. — Jerome K. Jerome

Little boys jump, but they do not know where. Into the mouth of the demon lair. Hold still and you will see, in his hand is the key. Fire and brimstone. Brimstone and fire. Your ally is clever. a thief and a liar. All is not lost. You can turn it around. But, for a moment...all will be well.....peaceful and sound." Alice. — Kathy Cyr

What kind of kinky robotic sex did you subject him to?" "Aramus!" His wife colored as she uttered his name in a shocked tone. "Oh, come on. Anyone can tell what they were up to. How do we know that's not what made him collapse? The boy was still recovering." "As if a little sex could take down one of you metal nuts, — Eve Langlais

Well what I would really like is a bunch of little n***ers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties. You know, in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around. Now, that would be a true Southern wedding wouldn't it? But we can't do that because the media would be on me about that, — Paula Deen

These two archetypal principles lie at the foundation of the contrasting system of East and West. The masses and their leaders do not realize, however, that there is no substantial difference between calling the world principle male and a father (spirit), as the West does, or female and a mother (matter), as the Communists do. Essentially, we know as little of the one as of the other. In earlier times, these principles were worshiped in all sorts of rituals, which at least showed the psychic significance they held for man. But now they have become mere abstract concepts. — C. G. Jung

The only happy people I know are people I don't know well. This observation is a one-sentence antidote to this obstacle to happiness. If all of us realized that the people with whom we negatively compare our happiness are plagued by pains and demons of which we know little or nothing, we would stop comparing our happiness with others'. Think of those people you know well, and you will realize the truth of Helen Telushkin's comment. Most likely you know how much unhappiness everyone you know well has experienced. And even with regard to these people whom you know well, chances are that you do not know with what inner demons - emotional, psychological, economic, sexual, or related to alcohol or drugs - they have to struggle. — Dennis Prager

Here I come to one of the memoir writer's difficulties
one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: 'This is what happened'; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. And the events mean very little unless we know first to whom they happened. — Virginia Woolf

It is part of our pedagogy to teach the operations of thinking, feeling, and willing so that they may be made conscious. For if we do not know the difference between an emotion and a thought, we will know very little ... We need to understand the components (of emotions) at work ... in order to free their hold. — Mary Caroline Richards

It is not enough to say that we cannot know or judge because all the information is not in. The process of gathering knowledge does not lead to knowing. A child's world spreads only a little beyond his understanding while that of a great scientist thrusts outward immeasurably. An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions. So we draw worlds and fit them like tracings against the world about us, and crumple them when they do not fit and draw new ones. — John Steinbeck

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal; For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal; For a simple penny pay thou back with gold; If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold. Thus the words and actions of the wise regard; Every little service tenfold they reward. But the truly noble know all men as one, And return with gladness good for evil done. — Mahatma Gandhi

Those type of people [in New Orleans] keep me happy and just smiling, you know? I just go hang out and talk with them and they tell me all types of old stories, and sometimes I might even pull my horn out in the middle of the block, and they're playing on beer bottles and different things, and we just do a little second line type thing, just us, four or five people, who are just having fun. That makes me day to be able to do that and go hang out with the people in the (Treme) neighborhood, and to do some shows around town, you know? — Troy Andrews

To answer your question as honestly as I can, I've wanted since I was very little to not have to worry about money. I've never been poverty-level poor (I mean, there's been years where I've been officially beneath the poverty line, but that wasn't poverty: that was being a student and living the Student Lifestyle), but I've been in a place where you know you can't afford a better-quality food, where you can't do certain things because of money, and I'd prefer not to have those problems if I can. I sort of have troubles with money in general, with how it determines so much of our lives but with how we all try to ignore it, but I would like to be (and stay) in a place where I can pick up some new comics and games and not worry about how much they cost.
This is terrible; you're asking me where I want to be in the future, what I want my life to be like, and the only thing I can tell you is Man, all I know is I don't want to be POOR. — Ryan North

Are you a good human being, Gerry? I mean good in the sense that if you put everything in the scales, they'd tip that way?" It startled her. "I don't know. I haven't thought of myself that way. I think I like the lush life a little too much. That's why I married George. I'm vain. I like men to admire me. I've got a coarse streak that comes out at the wrong times. But I do try to live up to ... some kind of a better image of myself. And I try to improve. I came from nothing, Trav, from a little raggedy-ass spread in the Panhandle with too many kids and too few rooms. — John D. MacDonald

It's crazy how intelligent kids can be at a very young age and how they know what they know. I came out of the womb drawing on everything; I used to draw on my mother's white furniture and her white walls with her red lipstick and my pencils. Little did she know that would later materialize into me doing what I do now - I'm a painter as well and a micromechanical engineer. — Aldis Hodge

I just do little jokes all the time and people think I'm serious. I know exactly who Gordon Ramsay is, I know exactly who Gordon Brown is ... I just say jokes but they think I'm serious which I think is funny and I think I kind of play up the image sometimes because - whatever - it's just entertainment. — Paris Hilton

Amy Martin (ladysky) and Daniel Baciagalupo had a month to spend on Charlotte Turner's island in Georgian Bay; it was their wilderness way of getting to know each other before their life together in Toronto began. We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly
as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth
the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.
Little Joe was gone, but not a day passed in Daniel Baciagalupo's life when Joe wasn't loved or remembered. The cook had been murdered in his bed, but Dominic Baciagalupo had had the last laugh on the cowboy. Ketchum's left hand would lvie forever in Twisted River, and Six-Pack had known what to do with the rest of her old friend — John Irving

Most of my teachers let me do independent studies, because they know I get bored in class and, frankly, I think they're a little scared that I know more than they do and they don't want to have to admit it. — Jodi Picoult

I despised how those pale-faced vegans held their little spoons, humbling themselves. Who do they think they are fooling, those bleached Brahmins? We all know that their low sitting is just another passage in their short lives. In the end, they will get bigger spoons and dig up the earth for their fathers' and mothers' inheritances. — Rawi Hage

Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written. — Ernest Hemingway,

Firstly," said Ponder, "Mr Pessimal wants to know what we do here."
"Do? We are the premier college of magic!" said Ridcully.
"But do we teach?"
"Only if no alternative presents itself," said the Dean. "We show 'em where the library is, give 'em a few little chats, and graduate the survivors. If they run into any problems, my door is always metaphorically open."
"Metaphorically, sir?" said Ponder.
"Yes. But technically, of course, it's locked."
"Explain to him that we don't do things, Stibbons," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "We are academics. — Terry Pratchett

People say the effect is only on the mind. It is no such thing. The effect is on the body, too. Little as we know about the way in which we are affected by form, by color, and light, we do know this, that they have an actual physical effect. Variety of form and brilliancy of color in the objects presented to patients, are actual means of recovery. — Florence Nightingale

Mouse took an idle whack at some kudzu as he passed, but his face was serious. "Hell, I don't know. Why do you care? That was right after our farm burned. They got everyone. Mom and Dad. Simon. Shane got recruited. I saw that. They shot Simon because he was too little, but they took Shane." He knocked aside more kudzu. "Maybe I was hoping they'd just shoot me and get it over with. I was so sick of hiding and scavenging. I think I wanted the bullet. — Paolo Bacigalupi

You see,' he said, 'I always imagine our being really happy with some few other people - a little freedom with people.'

She pondered for a moment.

'Yes, one does want that. But it must happen. You can't do anything for it with your will. You always seem to think you can force the flowers to come out. People must love us because they love us - you can't make them.'

'I know,' he said. 'But must one take no steps at all? Must one just go as if one were alone in the world - the only creature in the world? — D.H. Lawrence

I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television, — Elliott Smith

The two waiters inside the cafe knew that theo ld man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.
Last week he tried to commit suicide," one waiter said.
Why?"
He was in despair."
What about?"
Nothing."
How do you know it was nothing."
He has plenty of money. — Ernest Hemingway,

The next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean. — William Faulkner

Yesterday you asked me what the purpose of life is. I've thought about that ever since. I think it's to do good no matter what life throws at you, to not let the pain turn you bitter. It's something we have to learn, something we have to make ourselves become ... Little kids don't have to learn it. They already know. — Janette Rallison

Look, some people prefer they,' Alex said. 'They're non-binary or mid-spectrum or whatever. If they want you to use they, then that's what you should do. But for me, personally, I don't want to use the same pronouns all the time, because that's not me. I change a lot. That's sort of the point. When I'm she, I'm she. When I'm he, I'm he. I'm not they. Get it?'
'If I say no, will you hurt me?'
'No.'
'Then no, not really.'
She shrugged. 'You don't have to get it. Just, you know, a little respect.'
'For the girl with the very sharp wire? No problem.'
She must have liked that answer. There was nothing confusing about the smile she gave me. It warmed the office about five degrees. — Rick Riordan

This, I now know, is how people go crazy and do things they regret. Look at the woman who almost killed Al Green.I am sure she cooked those grits, fully intending to eat them for breakfast. Then he did something that set her off. After that, she probably picked up the pot, just to scare him a little bit. Next thing she knew and the boiling grits were all over his face. There was a name for that kind of thing. "Crime of passion." It meant that it wasn't your fault. — Tayari Jones

So, Mulder,' Colton spoke in a mocking tone. 'What do you think? Look like the work of Little Green Men?'
'Gray,' Mulder said seriously.
'What?' Colton asked.
'Gray,' Mulder explained. You said green men. A Reticulan's skin tone is gray. They're known for their extraction of human livers due to a lack of iron in the Reticulian Galaxy.'
Colton looked confused- as though he couldn't tell whether Mulder was joking. 'You can't be serious,' he said.
'Do you know how much liver and onions go for on Reticulum?' Mulder asked Colton. — Ellen Steiber

He approaches a cockroach in only one respect: his coloration is brown. That is all. Apart from this he has a tremendous convex belly divided into segments and a hard rounded back suggestive of wing cases. In beetles these cases conceal flimsy little wings that can be expanded and then may carry the beetle for miles and miles in a blundering flight. Curiously enough, Gregor the beetle never found out that he had wings under the hard covering of his back. (This is a very nice observation on my part to be treasured all your lives. Some Gregors, some Joes and Janes, do not know that they have wings.) — Vladimir Nabokov

graduates of elite American universities who had little sense of what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of them decided to get a job working for a Wall Street investment bank or management consultancy. If you don't know what your passion is or what you really want to do, they said, then "you might as well go to Wall Street and make a lot of money if you can't think of anything better to do."36 And I have heard similar comments from young graduates of selective colleges and universities. Nobody has ever taught them that what you do influences the kind of person you will become. — Leonard Sax

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

I know a lot of people have a hard time talking dirty - they dont know what to say, how to start, or when to end it. Also, at first they will think they sound ridiculous. And they might. But let me just say that talking dirty is so important in sex. And its pretty easy. To wit: Establish from the very beginning that you like this. And trust me, you want to do it early on. Because if you wait too long to introduce the concept, your Special Lady Friend will be a little thrown and might not take you seriously. — Olivia Munn

Stories don't teach us to be good; it isn't as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be good, or to be bad. They show us people like ourselves doing right things and wrong things, acting bravely or acting meanly, being cruel or being kind, and they leave it up to our own powers of empathy and imagination to make the connection with our own lives. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. It isn't like putting a coin in a machine and getting a chocolate bar; we're not mechanical, we don't respond every time in the same way ...
The moral teaching comes gently, and quietly, and little by little, and weighs nothing at all. We hardly know it's happening. But in this silent and discreet way, with every book we read and love, with every story that makes its way into our heart, we gradually acquire models of behaviour and friends we admire and patterns of decency and kindness to follow.
Philip Pullman from his Award Lecture, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Recipient 2005 — Philip Pullman

You know what we pride ourselves on that - although I wouldn't mind if my backside was a little smaller. But look at the original divas ... take Aretha Franklin for example - I've seen her live in the States and she was mammoth, but she had that crowd under control and they doted on every movement she made! We're not little midgets but the music industry is not about that, it's about loving the music and respecting what you do. — Kate DeAraugo

I'm certainly not going to tell other people what they should do with their own personal lives. I think it's certainly easier for a director to be out. The public is not going to see a movie because the director is gay or straight. It's maybe a little harder for an actor or actress because of, you know, the love roles and stuff. But gay people have been impersonating heteros in the movies for years. So, hopefully, that is becoming less of an issue. I think it would have been really great if a gay person had played a gay person. That's brave! — John Waters

Eventually my mother suffered a complete breakdown, and the court orders were finally signed. They took her to the State Mental Hospital at Kalamazoo. My mother remained in the same hospital at Kalamazoo for about 26 years.
My last visit, when I knew I would never come to see her again-there-was in 1952. I was twenty-seven. My brother Philbert had told me that on his last visit, she had recognized him somewhat. "In spots" he said.
But she didn't recognize me at all.
She stared at me. She didn't know who I was.
Her mind, when I tried to talk, to reach her, was somewhere else. I asked, "Mama, do you know what day it is?"
She said, staring, "All the people have gone."
I can't describe how I felt. The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn't know me.
It was as if I was trying to walk up the side of a hill of feathers."
-Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X — Malcolm X

The idea of gas engines was by no means new, but this was the first time that a really serious effort had been made to put them on the market. They were received with interest rather than enthusiasm and I do not recall any one who thought that the internal combustion engine could ever have more than a limited use. All the wise people demonstrated conclusively that the engine could not compete with steam. They never thought that it might carve out a career for itself. That is the way with wise people
they are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done; they always know the limitations. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice that I could be sure they would do little work. — Henry Ford

You would like a large family, Louisa? You want lots of babies of me? They'll grow up, you know, and turn into shrieking, banister-sliding, pony-grubbing little people, all of whom must have shoes and books and puppies. They'll eat like a regiment and have no thought for their clothes - which they'll grow out of before the maids can turn the first hem. They'll skin their knees, break their collarbones, and lose their dolls. Do you know what a trauma ensues when a six-year-old female loses her doll? I have a spare version of Missus Whatever-Hampton Her Damned Name Is, but Amanda found her and said a spare would never do, because the perishing thing didn't smell right - you find this amusing?" "I find you endearing." His brows came down. "I will never understand the female mind." "I — Grace Burrowes

But I'm learning it's human nature to want the things you can't have. What changes is how you go about pursuing the things you want. When you're a little kid and you're told no, you scream and throw a temper tantrum. When you're a teenager and your parents tell you no, you're old enough to internalize your temper tantrum. But you're smarter and you're sneakier this time around. So you nod and act like you care when they say no, when they tell you who you can be friends with, when they say the know what's best.
But then you go behind their backs to do it anyway.
Because at some point, you need to start calling the shots. At some point, you need to start believing you know whats best. Or, I thought with a smile, you just stop asking for their permission in the first place. — Katie Kacvinsky

That's the trouble with the conventional doctors. They always say, 'How does it work?' but often there isn't any neat little answer ... Something simply works ... We don't really know how it works. We say we do. We know one or two things we can see and measure ... — John Bradshaw

You start to realize connections between experiences and things that push your buttons, and things that have touched you in those vulnerable areas and what-have-you. And they form a little collection over time - at least I do - and as time progresses and new things are learned, you kind of sift through those things until they're air or danceable, you know? But they start as this thing that's either too hard or too soft to dance to. — Saul Williams

Even worse than losing self-confidence, though, is reacting defensively. There are surgeons who will see faults everywhere except in themselves. They have no questions and no fears about their abilities. As a result, they learn nothing from their mistakes and know nothing of their limitations. As one surgeon told me, it is a rare but alarming thing to meet a surgeon without fear. "If you're not a little afraid when you operate," he said, "you're bound to do a patient a grave disservice. — Atul Gawande

And maybe I am a monster. I don't know the answer to that. But what I do know is that even if there's demon blood inside me, there is human blood inside me as well. And I couldn't love you like I do if I weren't at least a little bit human. Because demons want. But they don't love. — Cassandra Clare

As we all know, poodles are a type of curly-haired dog preferred by petit bourgeois retirees, ladies very much on their own who transfer their affection upon their pet, or residential concierges ensconced in their gloomy loges. Poodles come in black or apricot. The apricot ones tend to be crabbier than the black ones, who on the other hand do not smell as nice. Though all poodles bark snappily at the slightest provocation, they are particularly inclined to do so when nothing at all is happening. They follow their master by trotting on their stiff little legs without moving the rest of their sausage-shaped trunk. Above all they have venomous little black eyes set deep in their insignificant eye-sockets. Poodles are ugly and stupid, submissive and boastful. They are poodles, after all — Muriel Barbery

I'll let you in on a little classified intel. See these people? Hardly know any of them. I mean, they go to my school, so technically I do, but we never hang out or anything. But the secret to LA is, if you throw a party - especially one of Jenna's parties - all you need to do is put out the word. If you build it, they will come, I say pointing to the crowded room. — Rachel Harris

They, therefore, who are hasty in their devotions and think a little will do, are strangers both to the nature of devotion and the nature of man; they do not know that they are to learn to pray, and that prayer is to be learnt as they learn other things, by frequency, constancy, and perseverance. — William Law

You can make your room such a delightful place that they will want to come to you...she is always on hand. Everybody who wants her knows just where to go. If people love her, she gets naturally to be the heart of the house. Once make the little ones feel that your room is the place of all the others to come to when they are tired, or happy, or grieved, or sorry about anything and that the Katy who lives there is sure to give them a loving reception and the battle is won. For you know we never do people good by lecturing. — Susan Coolidge

Shall I be able to understand the sense of what you have written?

No, King, what a poet writes is not meant to have any sense.

What then?

To have the tune itself.

What do you mean? Is there no philosophy in it?

No, none at all, thank goodness.

What does it say, then?

King, it says "I exist." Don't you know the meaning of the first cry of the new-born child? The child, when it is born, hears at once the cries of the earth and water and sky, which surround him,--and they all cry to him, "We exist," and his tiny little heart responds, and cries out in its turn, "I exist." My poetry is like the cry of that new-born child. It is a response to the cry of the Universe. — Rabindranath Tagore

It's not that deep down I want someone to "take care of me," it's that I'm exhausted, and occasionally overwhelmed by self-doubt. I'm steering the ship, but I don't know what I'm doing. None of us do. But it would be *so nice* to believe that someone out there did, and that maybe they could take the wheel for a little while. — Anna Kendrick

I know this from the hollow sound that persists after the men's prayer, and from their faces pressed against the window of supplication. And from their coloring, the complexion of people who respond to fear of the absurd with zeal. As for me, I don't like anything that rises to heaven, I only like things affected by gravity. I'll go so far as to say I abhor religions. All of them! Because they falsify the weight of the world. Sometimes I feel like busting through the wall that separates me from my neighbor, grabbing him by the throat, and yelling at him to quit reciting his sniveling prayers, accept the world, open his eyes to his own strength, his own dignity, and stop running after a father who has absconded to heaven and is never coming back. Have a look at that group passing by, over there. Notice the little girl with the veil on her head, even though she's not old enough to know what a body is, or what desire is. What can you do with such people? Eh? — Kamel Daoud

Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said:
"I want to get my haircut. I say, do you know a little shop anywhere where they cut hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, but it keeps on growing again."
One of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained naturalist. — G.K. Chesterton

Lots of people don't think little kids understand what adults are thinking or doing, Sometimes they - the adults, I mean - behave as if children are deaf and can't hear what's being said right in front of them. But none of that is true: they do understand, and even if they don't know what the words mean, they can feel the emotions behind the words. — Belinda Hollyer

There was something liberating and terrifying about the first day on a new job. In any new assignment, Bobbie had always had the unsettling feeling that she was in over her head, that she wouldn't know how to do any of the things they would ask her to do, that she would dress wrong or say the wrong thing, or that everyone would hate her. But no matter how strong that feeling was, it was overshadowed by the sense that with a new job came the chance to totally recreate herself in whatever image she chose, that - at least for a little while - her options were infinite. — James S.A. Corey

He made my life hell. Him and Tonto over there." Daniel glared toward Nick. "Poor little Clay. He has problems. He's had a tough life. You should be nice to him. You should make friends with him. That's all I ever heard. All they saw was a cute little runt of a wolf cub. He bared his teeth and they
thought it was cute. He ordered us around like a miniature Napoleon and they thought it was cute. Well, it wasn't cute from where I was standing. It was - "
I held up my hand. "You're ranting."
"What?"
"Just wanted to let you know. You're ranting. It's kinda ugly. Next thing you know, you'll be laying out your plans for world domination. That's what all villains do after they rant about their motivation. I was hoping you'd be different. — Kelley Armstrong

I have hair that drifts like seaweed when I swim. I have eyes that shine like rock pools. My ears are like scallop shells. The ripples on my skin are like the ripples on the sand when the tide has turned back again. At night I gleam and glow like sea beneath the stars and moon. Thoughts dart and dance inside like little minnows in the shallows. They race and flash like mackerel farther out. My wonderings roll in the deep like sails. Dreams dive each night into the dark like dolphins do and break out happy and free into the morning light. These are the things I know about myself and that I see when I look in the rock pools at myself. — David Almond

I mean the things that we have and that we think are so solid - they're like smoke, and time is like the sky that the smoke disappears into. You know how wreath of smoke goes up from a chimney, and seems all thick and black and busy against the sky, as if it were going to do such important things and last forever, and you see it getting thinner and thinner - and then, in such a little while, it isn't there at all; nothing is left but the sky, and the sky keeps on being just the same forever. — Booth Tarkington

The danger of pride
I see increasingly how difficult it is to exercise authority in a community. We are so inclined to want authority for the honour, prestige and admiration that comes with it. Inside each of us is a little tyrant who wants power and the associated prestige, who wants to dominate, to be superior and to control. We are frightened of criticism. We feel we are the only ones to see the truth - and that, sometimes, in the name of God ... So the community becomes 'our' project.
... And Christians can sometimes hide these tendencies behind a mask of virtue, doing what they do for 'good' reasons. There is nothing more terrible than a tyrant using religion as his or her cover. I know my own tendencies toward this and I have to struggle against them constantly. — Jean Vanier

Little black and tan older dog?" Verdie asked. "Do you know who he belongs to?"
"Belonged to, not belongs. Old man Rawling died about two weeks ago. His family intended to have Pete and Joe put to sleep the day after the funeral, but they both vanished." ...
"Dickie bought that crazy bird for his wife, Mary, about six years ago. He'd promised her that someday he'd take her to a tropical island and then she got cancer and he couldn't take her so he bought her the bird. — Carolyn Brown

When you have two people who love each other, are happy and gay and really good work is being done by one or both of them, people are drawn to them as surely as migrating birds are drawn at night to a powerful beacon. If the two people were as solidly constructed as the beacon there would be little damage except to the birds. Those who attract people by their happiness and their performance are usually inexperienced. They do not know how not to be overrun and how to go away. They do not always learn about the good, the attractive, the charming, the soon-beloved, the generous, the understanding rich who have no bad qualities and who give each day the quality of a festival and who, when they have passed and taken the nourishment they needed, leave everything deader than the roots of any grass Attila's horses' hooves have ever scoured. — Ernest Hemingway,

I have complete confidence in - in Secret Service. These guys and gals are unbelievably professional. They know what they're doing. And I basically do what they tell me to do. Now, sometimes I - I'm the first one to admit that it chaffs a little bit being inside this bubble. It's the hardest adjustment of being president, not being able to just take a walk. — Barack Obama

Lindsey took my father's hand and watched his face for movement. My sister was growing up before my eyes. I listened as she whispered the words he had sung to the two of us before Buckley was born:

Stones and bones;
snow and frost
seeds and beansand polliwogs.
Paths and twigs, assorted kisses,
We all who knowwho Daddy misses!
His two little frogs of girls, that's who.
They know where they are, do you, do you?


When her eyes closed and they both slept silently together, I whispered to them:
Stones and bones;
snow and frost;
seeds and beans and polliwogs.
Paths and twigs, assorted kisses,
We all know who Susie misses..... — Alice Sebold

I'm not anybody's judge; I don't know what motivates people to do what they do. But I have a lot of admiration for anybody who can start with absolutely nothing and make a little something out of it. — Wilford Brimley

People think children's books are about teddy bears and little flowers. I realize people sometimes don't know what to do with my books because they say, 'Is it a children's book, and what age group?' — Peter Sis

I mean those who cling to their own egos in their penances and external devotions, which such people regard as being of great importance. God have mercy on them, for they know little of the divine truth! Please people are called holy because of what they are seen to do, but inside they are asses, for they do not know the real meaning of divine truth . . . They are greatly esteemed by people who know no better . . . May they attain heaven because of their good intent, but that poverty, of which we now wish to speak, they know nothing. — Meister Eckhart

For Grace, After a Party"

You do not always know what I am feeling.
Last night in the warm spring air while I was
blazing my tirade against someone who doesn't
interest
me, it was love for you that set me
afire,

and isn't it odd? for in rooms full of
strangers my most tender feelings
writhe and
bear the fruit of screaming. Put out your hand,
isn't there
an ashtray, suddenly, there? beside
the bed? And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn't
you like the eggs a little

different today?
And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding. — Frank O'Hara

The girl's arms jutted out at awkward angles, not quite hands on the hips belligerent but not relaxed either, as if they weren't all the way under the girl's control. "I came to find you."
"I didn't know. If I'd known ... "
"It doesn't matter now." The girl's attention was unwavering. "This is where you are."
"It is at that."
The girl looked sad. Her soil-dark eyes were clouded over by tears she hadn't been able to shed. "I came here to find you."
"I couldn't have known." Maylene reached out and plucked a leaf from the girl's hair.
"Doesn't matter." She lifted a dirty hand, fingernails flashing chipped red polish, but she didn't seem to know what to do with her outstretched fingers. Little girl fears warred with teenage bravado. Bravado won. "I'm here now."
"All right, then." Maylene walked down the path toward one of the gates. She pulled the key from her handbag, twisted it in the lock, and pushed open the gate. — Melissa Marr

Listen, Mollie, I need to get home and let my parents know I'm alive. Then I am coming back for you. If my home is still standing, I'll provide a place for you and Frank as long as you need." "Why would you do that?" She looked a little taken aback, which surprised him. Because he loved her. Because they had just experienced the worst two days imaginable, and the bond that had been forged between them was not something to be tossed away. If Louis Hartman didn't like it, he would quit. The fire had just taught Zack what was most important in this world, and she was looking straight at him. — Elizabeth Camden

I would prefer," Pat said, his voice a little stiff, as if he expected resistance, "that I be the cosigner on the loan, if you go through with this. I know I'm not a famous billionaire, but I think my credit's just as good."
No, you're wrong about that," Tess said, shaking her head.
What?"
As far as I'm concerned, it's better. I'd much rather do business with you."
They shook on it. It was a deal, after all, not a time for hugging.
Favors, Arnie Vasso had once said. Your father knows all about favors. He had meant it as an insult, a sly reference to the corners the Monaghans and Weinsteins cut here and there. Now Tess saw it for the simple truth it was: Her father understood favors. How to do them, how to accept them, how to walk away when the price was too steep. It was a lesson she wouldn't mind learning someday.
Maybe this was the place to start. — Laura Lippman

He whose life is one even and smooth path, will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few occasions of self-emptying, and hence, but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests; but they who "do business in great waters," these see his "wonders in the deep. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

They think of me as a rich bitch, a frail little toy. Little do they know that I'm not a toy, I'm a storm. And I'm going to rip their lives apart. — L.J. Shen

When people in organizations focus only on their position, they have little sense of responsibility for the results produced when all positions interact. Moreover, when results are disappointing, it can be very difficult to know why. All you can do is assume that someone screwed up. — Peter M. Senge

I sound awful saying it but I think it can be like that. I see a lot of people in unstimulating relationships. And not just boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. They find themselves in stagnant friendships. If people were a little less scared [of ending things] they'd get more out of life ... You meet the right person at the right time and they fulfil a certain something in your life. You fulfil something in theirs. But there's a time limit to that. Unless you choose to be bloody good company for the rest of your life, do you know what I mean? — Laura Marling

Yes; but if dryads are foolish they must take the consequences, just as if they were real people," said Paul gravely. "Do you know what I think about the new moon, teacher? I think it is a little golden boat full of dreams. — L.M. Montgomery

It's a little different being the older guys on the team. We are going to help get the young guys get comfortable. We'll have to get them used to what they will face out there this season. There are some good guys out there. They know what they have to do to win. — Andrew Stevenson

I don't want to know about love.'
'But you should, my child. You need to know about love. The things people will do for love. All truths come down to love, do they not? One way or another, they do. See, there is a difference between love and need. Sometimes, what you feel is immediate and without rhyme or reason.' She sat up a little straighter. 'Two people see each across a room or their skin brushes. Their souls recognize the person as their own. It doesn't need time to figure it. The soul always knows ... whether it's right or wrong. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I need to give you one last bit of advice in the off chance this rather extraordinary and enviable situation in which you find yourself is actually true- that somehow you've fallen deep down into a Cordova story. I stared back at him. Be the good guy, he said. How do I know I'm the good guy? He pointed at me, nodding. A very wise question. You don't. Most bad guys think they're good. But there are a few signifiers. You'll be miserable. You'll be hated. You'll fumble around in the dark, alone and confused. You'll have little insight as to the true nature of things, not until the very last minute, and only if you have the stamina and the madness to go to the very, very end. But most importantly- and critically- you will act without regard for yourself. You'll be motivated by something that has nothing to do with the ego. You'll do it for justice. For grace. For love. Those large rather heroic qualities only the good have the strength to carry on their shoulders. And you'll listen. — Marisha Pessl

Dedicated

to all who have a dream

to all who struggle
two jobs to get by

to all who have been
ignored all their lives

to all who feel empty

to all who cannot sleep
because there is so much
in their mind

to all who have died a little
in the name of love

to all who are called weird,
strange and odd

to all who create because
that is the only thing they know
how to do

to all who believe in something

to all who breathe and to all
who are no longer here

this one is for you. — Robert M. Drake

Our eyes meet. Am I mistaken or does the corner of her mouth tuck in ever so slightly and the petal of her lower lip curl out ever so richly? She is smiling-at me! My mind hits upon half a dozen schemes to circumvent the terrible moment of separation. No doubt she is a Texan. They are nearly always bad judges of men, these splendid Amazons. Most men are afraid of them and so they fall victim to the first little Mickey Rooney that comes along. In a better world I should be able to speak to her: come, darling, you can see that I love you. If you are planning to meet some little Mickey, think better of it. What a tragedy it is that I do not know her, will probably never see her again. What good times we could have! — Walker Percy

Sophie dear,' I said. 'Are you in love with him - with this spider-man?'
'Oh, don't call him that - please - we can't any of us help being what we are. His name's Gordon. He's kind to me, David. He's fond of me. You've got to have as little as I have to know how much that means. You've never known loneliness. You can't understand the awful emptiness that's waiting all round us here. I'd have given him babies gladly, if I could ... I - oh, why do they do that to us? Why didn't they kill me? It would have been kinder than this ... '
She sat without a sound. The tears squeezed out from under the closed lids and ran down her face. I took her hand between my own.
I remembered watching. The man with his arm linked in the woman's, the small figure on top of the pack-horse waving back to me as they disappeared into the trees. Myself desolate, a kiss still damp on my
cheek, a lock tied with a yellow ribbon in my hand. I looked at her now, and my heart ached. — John Wyndham

The Fire Bug flared up at that. "You want to know what bugs me?" it said indignantly. "Nobodaddy's friendly about fire. Oh, it's fine in its place, people say, it makes a nice glow in a room, but keep an eye on it in case it gets out of control, and always put it out before you leave. Never mind how much it's needed; a few forests burned by wildfires, the occasional volcanic eruption, and there goes our reputation. Water, on the other hand! - hah! - there's no limit to the praise Water gets. Floods, rains, burst pipes, they make no difference. Water is everyone's favorite. And when they call it the Fountain of Life! - bah! - well, that just bugs me to bits." The Fire Bug dissolved briefly into a little cloud of angry, buzzing sparks, then came together again. "Fountain of Life, indeed," it hissed. "What an idea. Life is not a drip. Life is a flame. What do you imagine the sun is made of? Raindrops? I don't think so. Life is not wet, young man. Life burns. — Salman Rushdie

Do you ever think about it? About nothingness. I do, I think about it all the time. Because of course it's nothingness that awaits us. Of course it is. If it weren't why would our hearts keep pumping any longer than they had to? Why wouldn't we all emerge into the world pure and innocent, and then before we had a chance to get in any trouble, before we had a chance to take our first oily shit, just immediately shut down our systems and head straight to the hereafter? If there were a better life after death, why bother getting fitter for survival's sake? Why would evolution even be a thing? Why fight for something second best? If death was really awesome, in a life or death situation, our bodies wouldn't muscle up with epinephrine and cortisol. Our brains would hit us up instead with sloppy, sleepy happy love. Hannibal Lecter would be our Mickey Mouse. No, there's fuckall to look forward to. Our bodies understand this. The real problem is, it's unbearable to know this. So we cope. — Elizabeth Little

Seth and Jenny after they've escaped Alexander in Mexico.
Seth: "Here's what we need to do. Find a flat area, like a farm, a little bit out of the way where we can spend a little time." Seth unbuttoned his black fatigues.
Jenny: "Seth, I think we have more urgent things to think about ... "
Seth: "I know." He pushed his pants down to his knees. "I want to show you something.
Jenny: "I've seen it before."
Seth: "Ha ha." Seth tugged back the leg of his boxer shorts to reveal a black band around one thigh with a circular device mounted on it. — J.L. Bryan

The Listening Exercise
Relax. Close your eyes. Try for several minutes to concentrate on all of the sounds you hear in your surroundings, as if you were hearing an orchestra playing its instruments. Little by little, try to separate each sound from
the others. Concentrate on each one, as if it were the only instrument playing. Try to eliminate the other sounds from your awareness.
When you do this exercise every day, you will begin to hear voices. First, you will think that they are imaginary. Later, you will discover that they are
voices of people from your past, present, and future, all of them participating with you in the remembrance of time.
This exercise should be performed only when you already know the voice of your messenger.
Do this exercise for ten minutes at a time. — Paulo Coelho

If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know how much truth is stronger than errors, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. — Henry David Thoreau

People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it. They claim that the light that shines in the darkness can be trusted more than the darkness itself and that a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness. They point each other to flashes of light here and there, and remind each other that they reveal the hidden but real presence of God. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Being an actor helps me direct a little bit, when I do that, which I haven't been able to do that much, but I plan to in the future. There are a lot of reasons for that, but certainly because I feel like you know how to talk to actors, and you know what they need from you if you've been one yourself. — Joseph Mazzello

Know what I think?" said Perry. "I think there must be something wrong with
us. To do what we did."'
"Did what?"
"Out there."
Dick dropped the binoculars into a leather case, a luxurious receptacle initialed
H. W. C. He was annoyed. Annoyed as hell. Why the hell couldn't Perry shut up? Christ
Jesus, what damn good did it do, always dragging the goddam thing up? It really was
annoying. Especially since they'd agreed, sort of, not to talk about the goddam thing.
Just forget it.
"There's got to be something wrong with somebody who'd do a thing like that,"
Perry said.
"Deal me out, baby," Dick said. "I'm a normal." And Dick meant what he said.
He thought himself as balanced, as sane as anyone - maybe a bit smarter than the
average fellow, that's all. But Perry - there was, in Dick's opinion, "something wrong"
with Little Perry. — Truman Capote

Stories," she blurted. "The mosaic told stories, didn't it?"
"Yes, old ones."
"I'll tell them to you."
His eyes cracked open. He didn't remember closing them. "You know those tales?"
"Yes."
She didn't. This became clear as she began to tell them. She knew bits and pieces, cobbled together in ways that would have made him smile if smiling didn't hurt. "You," he breathed, "are such a faker."
"Don't interrupt."
Mostly pure invention. She remembered the images--it pleased him, how vividly she knew the temple floor's details. Which god curled around which, or how the snake's tongue forked into three. But the stories she told had little to do with his religion. Sometimes they didn't even make sense.
"Do this again," he said, "when I have strength to laugh."
"As bad as that?"
"Mmm. Maybe not. For a Valorian. — Marie Rutkoski

Little as we know about the way in which we are affected by form, by color, and light, we do know this, that they have an actual physical effect. — Florence Nightingale

My Tom died as babies do, gently and without complaint. Because they have been such a little time with us, they seem to hold to life but weakly. I used to wonder if it was so because the memory of Heaven still lived within them, so that in leaving here they do not fear death as we do, who no longer know with certainty where it is our spirits go. This, I thought, must be the kindness that God does for them and for us, since He gives so many infants such a little while to bide with us. — Geraldine Brooks

Where were you all this time? she said. Where have you been?
I guess far away.
Yes you were. Too far away.
They sat in silence.
You know you frightened me a little, she said. At the beginning.
No.
You did.
He smiled at that.
You looked as if you didnt anyone, she said.
But this are the ones who need the most, he said. Don't you know that?
I do know, she said. Too late. — Susan Minot

One of the reasons the team on NCIS works so well-is that they live by their leader's rules-which are not a secret .
What are your rules/standards? Do the people in your life know what they are? Do you hold grudges/resentments when they don't measure up? Do you pretend that everything is fine-when it's not-and close up a little every day?
And most importantly-
When was the last time YOU reviewed/upgraded your standards/expectations rules-and took a look at the impact around you/checked in?
(Hint-most people live from rules/standards/expectations created from reactions/perceptions formed around the age of six)
Might be time for a review/upgrade ... — Dave Rudbarg

Ever since I was little, people would always make jokes about my low voice. But I think it's so cool that you don't have to have the picture-perfect, girly voice to do an animated film. I think it's great for kids with different voices to know that they could do something like this. — Miley Cyrus

Growing up in a religious environment, children learn what not to do sexually. They learn that some practices or ideas, such as homosexuality, lust, masturbation, and pornography are sinful. These ideas are embedded in the minds of children years before they are ready for marriage, so it's no surprise that many religious people have little or no experience with sex and know little about their sexuality.
The guilt cycle that results from this training creates a form of self-censorship. Because so many sex acts and ideas are liable to lead to eternal damnation, people have a strong incentive to avoid expressing or discussing secretly held ideas and interests. Fear leads to hidden thoughts and activities and prevents normal, appropriately channeled sexual expression. — Darrel Ray

What is good, and what is evil? Where do you draw the line between the two?" Now Yuriko was getting a little upset. I'm just in fifth grade, you know. They haven't taught us difficult things like that yet. "There — Miyuki Miyabe