Manse Quotes & Sayings

If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day ... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning ... — Walter Mosley

When I die, they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die. — John Lee Hooker

I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition. (Said to Leopold Mozart) — Joseph Haydn

Rosy's mummy hands Franny a clear plastic bag full of reject biscuits, then Rosy holds her cheek out for Franny's wet kiss. Rosy wipes the slime from her face and Franny cackles, then shows them both into the lounge.
There on Franny's coffee table is a biscuit tin with a Christmas picture on the lid. Proper shop-bought biscuits, not factory rejects.
"Please, may I have a biscuit?" Rosy says.
"Oh, there are no biscuits in that my darling," Franny says, and pulls the tin from Rosy's prying fingers. Franny holds open the bag of crumb-speckled chocolate digestives. "Help yourself, my wee hen."
Rosy settles for a reject.
Franny puts the Christmas tin up high, way up high, way out of reach. — R.G. Manse

Rosy waited as long as she dared then sat forward and let her eye rove Franny's lounge, up and down the shelves, looking for something, not even sure she could bring herself to act if she saw it again, already convinced this was her worst ever idea — R.G. Manse

The door of Reverend Verringer's impressive manse is opened by an elderly female with a face like a pine plank; the Reverend is unmarried, and has need of an irreproachable housekeeper. Simon is ushered into the library. It is so self-consciously the right sort of library that he has an urge to set fire to it. — Margaret Atwood

If I can make programmes when I'm 95, that would be fine. But I would think I'll have had enough by then. — David Attenborough

Oh, I'm going to take them," said Miss Cornelia. "Of course, I was glad to, but Mary would have given me no peace till I asked them any way. The Ladies' Aid is going to clean the manse from top to bottom before the bride and groom come back, and Norman Douglas has arranged to fill the cellar with vegetables. Nobody ever saw or heard anything quite like Norman Douglas these days, believe ME. He's so tickled that he's going to marry Ellen West after wanting her all his life. If I was Ellen - but then, I'm not, and if she is satisfied I can very well be. I heard her say years ago when she was a schoolgirl that she didn't want a tame puppy for a husband. There's nothing tame about Norman, believe ME. — L.M. Montgomery

Win," Leo said, "you'll burn the house down, just after it's been rebuilt. Give me the bloody matchbox."
She shook her head resolutely.
Are we starting a new springtime ritual?" Leo demanded. "The annual burning-of-the-manse?" Come to your senses, Win. — Lisa Kleypas

I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more ... though I know that IS the noblest ambition ... but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me ... to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born. — L.M. Montgomery

The common man, no matter how sharp and tough, actually enjoys having the wool pulled over his eyes, and makes it easier for the puller. — P.T. Barnum

My heart beats in three-quarter time. — Eric Kandel

In working well, if travail you sustain, Into the wind shall lightly pass the pain; But of the deed the glory shall remain, And cause your name with worthy wights to reign. In working wrong, if pleasure you attain, The pleasure soon shall fade, and void as vain; But of the deed throughout the life the shame Endures, defacing you with foul defame. — Nicholas Grimald

The minister paused in his narrative. At that moment there came a tremendous blast of wind which shook the windows of the manse, and burst open the hall door, and caused the candles to flicker and the fire to go roaring up the chimney. It is not too much to say that, what with the uncanny story, and the howling storm, we all felt that creeping sort of uneasiness which so often seems like the touch of something from another world - a hand stretched across the boundary-line of time and eternity, the coldness and mystery of which make the stoutest heart tremble. ("Sandy The Tinker") — Charlotte Riddell

I will not leave the Republican Party, ... The Republican Party is my home. — John McCain

I'm a strange mixture of my mother's curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother's father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts. — Rupert Murdoch

Frank's phone beep-beeped and vibrated before he'd put it back in his pocket:
Love to! xx
Man. Two kisses already. The woman was a nymphomaniac. — R.G. Manse

Jazz tells Lucy to relax and tries to kick her under the table. I know this because she kicks me instead. "Aim more to the left," I tell her, and she has another go. "Farther left," I say, and enjoy watching her hit the target a couple of times. — Cath Crowley

To think that I, the son ofthe manse, should be able to help restore the Holy Land to its people. — Woodrow Wilson

Silver gray hair Neatly combed in place There were four generations Of love on her face She was so wise No surprise passed her eyes She's seen it all — Dianne Reeves

Was a new family in the manse. And such a family! Miss Cornelia shook her head over them several times as she walked briskly along. Susan Baker — L.M. Montgomery

It was a dark and stormy night. . .perfect for staying indoors and writing a novel! — Z

What bedrooms did you give to our guests?"
"The ones all the way ... way ... way on the other side of the manse."
He laughed at that, hugging her tightly for giving him that ability to indulge in humor once more.
"Then I'd say the bedroom with the old armoire you like should suffice."
"Yes, master," she teased, flicking her hand and sending them there. "Oops, one sec." She winked at him and snapped her fingers, the bottle of lotion suddenly in her hand.
"Show-off. You know, you are going to have to tell me how you do that."
"Well, first you pump this little thing on top, then the lotion - "
Legna yelped when he slapped his hand hard on her bottom, the blanket doing little to shield her from the sting of it.
"Gideon! Do not ever do that again!" she scolded.
"Not even if you beg me to?" he countered lecherously.
Legna laughed, unable to help herself.
"I hate you!"
"No, you do not," he insisted. "How many times do I have to tell you that? — Jacquelyn Frank

Always ask, you might get a yes. — Rena Manse

On the heights above the river Xzan, at the site of certain ancient ruins, Iucounu the Laughing Magician had built a manse to his private taste: an eccentric structure of steep gables, balconies, sky-walks, cupolas, together with three spiral green glass towers through which the red sunlight shone in twisted glints and peculiar colors. — Jack Vance

Franny?" Rosy held up the four little Franks. "Could I keep one of these?"
Franny looked at her hard for a moment then nodded. "'Course you can, hen," she said, "But that's not your daddy."
Rosy gaped. "It's not?"
"That's my wee darling. That's my wee Frankie before the devil twisted him into a monster." She poked her finger into another hole where Frank's face should have been. Her eyes glinted. — R.G. Manse

Thou shalt say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said nothing! — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Rosy lifted her arm, tried to say something, then pointed at the cafe, held her head, covered her mouth and - humiliation of humiliations - she began to cry. Right there in the street. "I'm so confused," she said but it came out as a great honking wail.
"Come here, you silly girl," Phyllis said.
The woman put her arms around Rosy, patted her back, and for the first time in forever, Rosy allowed herself to just cry.
A young mother with twins in a pram passed them. The children's eyes tracked Rosy for a second before their faces crumpled and they started to cry too.
"I'm sorry," Rosy said, and flapped her arms. "I'm sorry. — R.G. Manse

Aunt Viney (short for 'Lavinia'), viewed in the grey daylight that came in through the dining-room window, was always a rather imposing spectacle. She was fifty-one years of age, and had large staring eyes, quick bustling movements, more than a tendency to stoutness, a menacing optimism that was not quite matched by a sense of humour, and the most decided opinions upon everything. She was an excellent 'manager', and for more than a decade had lived at the Manse with her sister and brother-in-law and their children (there had been boys at one time), looking after them all with undoubted if rather relentless competence. — James Hilton