Quotes & Sayings About Marbles

Little kids shoot marbles
where the branches break the sun
into graceful shafts of light ...
I just want to be pure. — Jim Carroll

The path turned a hard right and then dumped into a rocky stream. It looked as if a giant had tossed white boulders and the rocks the way children toss marbles. They lay in scrambled heaps, some as large as carriages, others the size of chamber pots. A weak stream trickled around them. — Eloisa James

I was 15 years old when I was in this band; we were called Stag. We used to wear spandex pants and no underwear - we looked like marbles smugglers. — Craig Ferguson

Do men who have got all their marbles go swimming in lakes with their clothes on? — P.G. Wodehouse

He loved to meditate on a land laid waste, Britain deserted by the legions, the rare pavements riven by frost, Celtic magic still brooding on the wild hills and in the black depths of the forest, the rosy marbles stained with rain, and the walls growing grey. — Arthur Machen

Don't ever, ever, ever give up, because you're here for a reason, even if it's just to laugh at cats on the internet. — Jenna Marbles

Why?' He kept asking in his sweetly belling voice, its tone as pure as marbles swirled around a crystal pail. Why him wun up the tree? Why him nest up theah? Why him gadder nuts? Why? Why? Why? And Billy answering every question to the best of his ability, as if anything less would disrespect the deep and maybe even divine force that drove his little nephew toward universal knowledge. — Ben Fountain

So if you're really unhappy down there, and if all kinds of people are telling you that you're suffering from severe perceptual disorders, look for your own way of getting here, and when you find it, could you please bring some cards, 'cause we're getting pretty tired of the marbles. - from Pipes — Etgar Keret

The woman in the tub had been dead for a long time. She was bloated and purple, her gas-filled belly rising out of the cold, ice-rimmed water like some fleshy island. Her eyes were fixed on Danny's, glassy and huge, like marbles. She was grinning, her purple lips pulled back in a grimace. Her breasts lolled. Her pubic hair floated. Her hands were frozen on the knurled porcelain sides of the tub like crab claws. — Stephen King

In 2009, novelty toymaker Maxfield & Oberton released Buckyballs, sets of curiously powerful magnetic marbles that became the most popular cubicle toy since the Rubik's Cube, selling more than 2 million units in 15 countries. — David Sax

A fellow must know where he wants to go, if he is going to get anywhere. It is so easy just to drift along. Some people go through school as if they thought they were doing their families a favor. On a job, they work along in a humdrum way, interested only in their salary check. They don't have a goal. When anyone crosses them up, they take their marbles and walk out. The people who go places and do things make the most of every situation. They are ready for the next thing that comes along on the road to their goal. They know what they want and are willing to go an extra mile. — William C. Menninger

Most of us won't see one another after graduation, and even if we do it will be different. We'll be different. We'll be adults
cured, tagged and labeled and paired and identified and placed neatly on our life path, perfectly round marbles set to roll down even, well-defined slopes. — Lauren Oliver

I want to take ye to bed. In my bed. And I mean to spend the rest of the day thinking
what to do wit ye once I got ye there. So wee Archie can just go and play at marbles
with his bollucks, aye? — Diana Gabaldon

When my cousin Anil-da started telling us what he'd heard at the market about the groom's family, at my aunt Moina-pehi's wedding in January 2002, his eyes shone like inky marbles reflecting sunlight. — Aruni Kashyap

When a hurricane thrashes the mid-Atlantic, my hilly town often reaps the fringe of the storm. The rain starts blowing sideways, and sometimes we see hail the size of purie marbles. — Diane Ackerman

I was alone in a great spinning wheel surrounded by things that were made out of meat, things that moved all by themselves. Some of them were wrapped in pieces of cloth. Strange nonsensical sounds came from holes at their top ends, and there were other things up there, bumps and ridges and something like marbles or black buttons, wet and shiny and embedded in the slabs of meat. They glistened and jiggled and moved as if trying to escape. I didn't understand the sounds the meat was making, but I heard a voice from somewhere. It was like God talking, and that I couldn't help but understand. — Peter Watts

Grey time-worn marbles Hold the pure Muses. In their cool gallery, By yellow Tiber, They still look fair. — Matthew Arnold

A jacketless Murdoch resumes his quiz, brushing off the assault as 'an overexcited autograph-hunter wanting to have his shaving foam signed. — Andy Zaltzman

The more the marbles wastes, the more the statue grows. — Michelangelo

Annie knew that her mother's marbles were loose, but had never suspected that one day they would all fly out of the bag at the same time, bouncing into far-flung corners, never to be gathered together again. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

He knew that she was to have an elaborate wedding, and the being who loved her most, who would love her forever, would not even have the right to die for her. Jealousy, which until that time had been drowned in weeping, took possession of his soul. He prayed to God that lightning of divine justice would strike Fermina Daza as she was about to give her vow of love and obedience to a man who wanted her for his wife only as a social adornment, and he went into rapture at the vision of the bride, his bride or no one's, lying face up on the flagstones of the Cathedral, her orange blossoms laden with the dew of death, and the foaming torrent of her veil covering the funerary marbles of the fourteen bishops who were buried in front of the main altar. Once his revenge was consummated, however, he repented of his own wickedness, and then he saw Fermina Daza rising from the ground, her spirit intact, distant but alive, because it was not possible for him to imagine the world without her. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Across the distance, the Acropolis museum cradled within its protective walls its legendary treasures, lulling them to a peaceful sleep under the eerie light from the heavens. Yet, through the large window, the five Caryatids stood alert on their strong platform. The ageless maidens with the long braided hair down their backs remained awake even at this hour gazing across to the Acropolis, full of nostalgia for their sacred home. Inside their marble chests, they nurtured as always, precious hope for the return of their long lost sister. — Effrosyni Moschoudi

Lip. I have a sudden vivid picture of the earth as flat, a tray, covered in marbles, and someone is tilting it, and the marbles are rolling, cascading, from east to west. — Ben H. Winters

Men live by production, but the State lives by appropriation. While the haves and the have-nots struggle over the division of existing wealth, it is the business of the State to improve itself at the expense of both; it picks up the marbles while the boys are fighting. That has been the story of men in organized society since the beginning. That this lesson of history should have escaped the reformers of the nineteenth century, when the habit of freedom was still strong in America, can be easily understood; what is not easily explained is the acceptance of the doctrine of benevolent government in our day, when all the evidence to the contrary is before our eyes. — Frank Chodorov

There is no cure for ugly, but you can make yourself into a human optical illusion. — Jenna Marbles

The big, blazing truth about man is that he has a heaven-sized hole in his heart, and nothing else can fill it. We pass our lives trying to fill the Grand Canyon with marbles. As Augustine said: Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee. — Peter Kreeft

I make more money than I need, ever. — Jenna Marbles

If every year is a marble, how many marbles do you have left? How many sunrises, how many opportunities to rise to the full stature of your being? — Joy Page

Most people are on the world, not in it - have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them - undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate. — John Muir

People are trying so hard to become famous. Johnny Marbles, he tried to throw a pie in Rupert Murdoch's face. What do I gotta do, give Sumner Redstone a wedgie? — Andy Kindler

Recalling his childhood in later life, Adams wrote of the unparalleled bliss of roaming in the open fields and woodlands of the town, of exploring the creeks, hiking the beaches, "of making and sailing boats ... swimming, skating, flying kites and shooting marbles, bat and ball, football ... wrestling and sometimes boxing," shooting at crows and ducks, and "running about to quiltings and frolics and sances among the boys and girls." The first fifteen years o fhis life, he said, :went off like a fairytale". — David McCullough

I'd like to go back to five years old again. Just sometimes. To be turning over rocks and looking for pill bugs and holding earthworms, playing dolls, erecting forts, digging through dirt for marbles, burrowing in leaf piles, failing at igloo building, when my biggest concern was going to sleep with the lights off. I wish I was five again, before things got hard, before I was forced to grow up way too early and been stuck in this "adult" thing way too long. I wish I could sit in my Grandpa's lap and let him sing me crazy Irish songs and go over the names of the planets. "Gwampa, tell me about Outer Space." ... "Gwampa, sing the Swimming Song."
I wish I could go back there, just for a little while, and pick raspberries by myself in the sun and find secret hideaways and not hurt, not worry, not carry the heavy things. If I could be five years old ... just for a few minutes. Remember what it felt like to be free. That would be something. — Jennifer DeLucy

I stopped, torn between my concern for Samuel and my wish to vacate the kitchen before I dissolved into a howling puddle.

"If you talk to Samuel soon.....will you tell him I came by and asked about him? Please remind him about his umbilical cord."

Nettie and Don stared at me like I'd lost my marbles. "Just tell him, okay? He'll understand."

I fled through the house and out into the frigid February evening. — Amy Harmon

The fact that he gave her the creeps just proved she was normal. He had the flat, dead face of an item turned out by machines. His eyes were cold as marbles pressed into dough. His insides went with the surface. He could beat a man insane or take it himself, and it didn't mean a thing to him. — Walter Kaylin

When I was a kid, I used to play marbles. I know some of you think I've lost mine. — Jimy Williams

You are constantly changing & evolving through your experiences, how you interpret your experiences, and how you choose to do things in the future based on those experiences. — Jenna Marbles

Make it look like your skin is not so angry at you for your bad life choices. — Jenna Marbles

Keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles is hard work, but important. — Sara Gruen

I watch vlogs on YouTube. I watch Jenna Marbles a lot - I think she's really funny - and a lady called Daily Grace. — Maisie Williams

I have had a lot of cool offers to move into traditional media, but I'm not completely sold I have to do that. — Jenna Marbles

Children's games constitute the most admirable social institutions. The game of marbles, for instance, as played by boys, contains an extremely complex system of rules - that is to say, a code of laws, a jurisprudence of its own. — Jean Piaget

If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too. Sometime they'd rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner from the way they play with theirs. The result is, a few games out of a toy department of possibilities are universally and endlessly repeated. If you don't play some people's game, they say that you have "lost your marbles," not recognizing that, while Chinese checkers is indeed a fine pastime, a person may also play dominoes, chess, strip poker, tiddlywinks, drop-the-soap or Russian roulette with his brain. — Tom Robbins

The Collectorship of Madna is the seventh post that he has held in eight years. He is quite philosophic about the law that governs the transfer of civil servants; he sees it as a sort of corollary to the law of karma, namely, that the whole of life passes through innumerable and fundamentally mystifying changes, and these changes are sought to be determined by our conduct, our deeds (otherwise, we would quite simply lose our marbles); only thus can we even pretend to satisfactorily explain the mystery of suffering, which is a subject that has troubled thoughtful souls all over the world since time immemorial. It is also a hypothesis that justifies the manifest social inequalities of the Hindu community. — Upamanyu Chatterjee

What you see and hear is a situation in which languages are less like apples - neat and discrete - and more like oatmeal. It's always been oatmeal in India, and all the varieties of oatmeal continue to merge, despite political pressures to name them as if they were marbles. — Michael Erard

This is it. It's for all the marbles. I'm sitting in the house loading up the pump, I'm loading up the Uzis, I've got a couple of M-16s, couple of nines, couple of joints with some silencers on them, couple of grenades, got a missile launcher. I'm ready for war. — Kevin Garnett

Don't listen to him." Mabel waved a hand in disregard. "He's gone and lost his mind since the last time you paid us a visit. All his marbles fell out; rolled under the tables and counters, and he's too old to bend down and find them. — Ania Ahlborn

Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles. Why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike. — Lydia M. Child

If the plural for marble, marbles, is slang for sanity, then what does it mean to get lost in a room of marble statues? — Bridgette Bates

And I won 'em back fair and square. So what are you going to do about it? Want to fight? Who wants the first bloody nose? — Ava Gardner

Good. How about you find the balls that are attached to your dicks, draw them out of your abdominal cavity and show me."
"You want to see our testicles, Coach?" Mike asked, making his way backward down his ladder.
"Maybe when I find my magnifying glass, Mr. Brown! I won't be able to tell the difference between what you call testicles and raisins."
Mike gasped for air. "My balls are sweeter, sir!"
Lids narrowed over his black marbles. "Glad to know how flexible you are, Mr. Brown. That'll come in handy for the rest of my practice." Watkins added with a growl, "If you are still alive. — Ashlan Thomas

There's a big difference between me and other YouTubers - a lot of them have big, concrete plans. I'm still this weird chicken with my head cut off. I don't know what I want to do next and haven't known that since I started. — Jenna Marbles

I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles. — G.K. Chesterton

Why do people write books that say it's better to be older than to be younger? It's not better. Even if you have all your marbles, you're constantly reaching for the name of the person you met the day before yesterday ... If you work, you're surrounded by young people who are plugged into the marketplace, the demographic, the zeitgeist; they want your job and someday they're going to get it. — Nora Ephron

As weird and awful and terrible as it may seem to be yourself sometimes, it will always reward you. — Jenna Marbles

Oh, Caddy," said Saffron miserably.
"I know. It's awful. But I'm going. We all should."
"It will be so sad."
"You have to be sad sometimes," said Caddy. "Whatever Dad says. He may be right. Granddad probably had totally lost his marbles, but I am still sad and I'm still going to the funeral. I shall be as unhappy as I like and I shall where black. — Hilary McKay

How some pre-teens lose their minds for boy bands, rock stars, and hot celebrities, I always lost my marbles for Beau. It all started when he climbed a tree to save my cat. I was eight. He was ten. He'd kissed me on the cheek. He'd wiped my tears. He'd held my hand. He'd hugged me close. He was my hero. He'd saved my cat. — Penny Reid

Before I go to work, I like to pump myself up by crying over my master's degree. — Jenna Marbles

All our land was enriched with my treasures buried in it, thickly inhabited just below the surface with my marbles and my teeth and my colored stones, all perhaps turned to jewels by now, held together under the ground in a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us. — Shirley Jackson

I don't want to play with marbles, when God told me to move mountains! — Reinhard Bonnke

Our age is very cheap and intelligible. Unroof any house, and you shall find it. The well-being consists in having a sufficiency of coffee and toast, with a daily newspaper; a well glazed parlor, with marbles, mirrors and centre-table; and the excitement of a few parties and a few rides in a year. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's okay if you can't see what you're doing, cuz even when your eyes are open, you can't see what you're doing. — Jenna Marbles

All the men added together made the solid world
they were the marbles in the jar, and women were whatever sand or water or air claimed the space left between them. That's how I saw things as a young woman, that was my women's studies. Now I've come to know that women are like vodka poured over men, who melt away like ice cubes. — Bonnie Jo Campbell

'Marbles' really took so much and such a thorough effort from me that I was so happy to tie that up and have it feel satisfying. — Ellen Forney

It's my earliest memory: arranging my brother's marbles into words. It is summer, and I am beneath the oak that stands in the back corner of the work yard. Thomas, ten, whom I love above all the others, has taught me nine words: SARAH, GIRL, BOY, GO, STOP, JUMP, RUN, UP, DOWN. He has written them on a parchment and given me a pouch of forty-eight glass marbles with which to spell them out, enough to shape two words at a time. — Sue Monk Kidd

I don't recommend washing your face. Because you might drown. — Jenna Marbles

Fortunately, when we have all our marbles, we can shift our memories very quickly. — Michelle Stuart

He sounded like a man with a mouthful of marbles, articulating his goatbone underjaw laboriously, the original one having been shot away. — Cormac McCarthy

I believe that you become yourself every single day of your life through your choices and how you think. And that's constantly changing every day ... You are constantly changing, evolving through your experiences, how you interpret your experiences, and how you choose to do things in the future based on those experiences ... Being yourself means you think with your own mind, and you make your own choices and that makes you you. — Jenna Marbles

There didn't seem to be any difference at all between LOSING YOUR MARBLES and HAVING A BREAKDOWN, and whether you called it a BUGHOUSE or a SANNY-TARIUM, there were still bars on the windows and they wouldn't let you out if you wanted to go. — Stephen King

I am convinced, by repeated observation, that marbles, lime-stones, chalks, marls, clays, sand, and almost all terrestrial substances, wherever situated, are full of shells and other spoils of the ocean. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

I needed to plug that hole in my head where the marbles were pouring out. — Ann Charles

Poor Kate," said Constance, "she's lost her marbles. — Trenton Lee Stewart

* The blackest cloud I've ever seen squatted over Mussoorie, and then it hailed marbles for half an hour. Nothing like a hailstorm to clear the sky . Even as I write, I see a rainbow forming. — Ruskin Bond

When I lose my marbles which is never, when I lose my energy, I travel the world today for Viacom, China, Turkey, Dubai, Kuwait. When that happens, I'll know enough to retire, but that's never gonna happen. I'm here for forever. — Sumner Redstone

I'm not an actor. — Jenna Marbles

I know in London a Welsh hairdresser who has striven so vehemently to abolish his accent that he sounds like a man speaking with the Elgin marbles in his mouth. — Dylan Thomas

Here is my room, in the yellow lamplight and the space heater rumbling: Indian rug red as Cochise's blood, a desk with seven mystic drawers, a chair covered in material as velvety blue-black as Batman's cape, an aquarium holding tiny fish so pale you could see their hearts beat, the aforementioned dresser covered with decals from Revell model airplane kits, a bed with a quilt sewn by a relative of Jefferson Davis's, a closet, and the shelves, oh, yes, the shelves. The troves of treasure. On those shelves are stacks of me: hundreds of comic books- Justice League, Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, the Spirit, Blackhawk, Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, Aquaman, and the Fantastic Four ... The shelves go on for miles and miles. My collection of marbles gleams in a mason jar. My dried cicada waits to sing again in the summer. My Duncan yo-yo that whistles except the string is broken and Dad's got to fix it. — Robert McCammon

I've decided to call him Norbert,' said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. 'He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mummy?'
'He's lost his marbles,' Ron muttered in Harry's ear.
'Hagrid,' said Harry loudly, 'give it a fortnight and Norbert's going to be as big as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment.
Hagrid bit his lip.
'I- I know I can't jus' dump him, I can't.'
Harry suddenly turned to Ron.
'Charlie,' he said.
'You're losing it too,' said Ron. 'I'm Ron, remember? — J.K. Rowling

Henri said our names were fitting because we were destined to be together in our old age, like our great-great-aunts. Two gray old ladies in the bodies of teenage girls. Someday we'd live in a big house with faded curtains, a dozen or so cats, and a handful of our marbles long ago lost. On all accounts - our destiny, her clairvoyance, and our soon-to-be missing marbles - I believed her. — Jessica Taylor

My mind: a thousand hungry daughters,
my harlot heritage.

Marbles: lost, no rescue search.

Your heart: blooming thorns,
and a stolen grocery cart. — Virginia Petrucci

You become yourself, every single day of your life, through your choices and how you think. — Jenna Marbles

You've already got a natural glow, kind of of, cuz you're drunk, so just make it like way more intense, everybody loves someone who's so red in the face. Are you embarrassed? No, I'm just excited to be here. I'm normal, I swear. Do you want my phone number? — Jenna Marbles

He said that if you were able to look at the crows really closely, you would see that their eyes were stolen baubles, like buttons or marbles.
To get real eyes, they had to steal them from children. Older people's eyes were too set in their ways of looking and would be no good for a crow. That's why people don't let their children out after dark. The crow who stole the eyes of a real child was king. With a piece of plastic they could just see what was in front of them, but with a child's eyes, they could see the whole world. — Heather O'Neill

He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:
"Brother, go find your brother!"
He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each other. — Mark Twain

The Elgin Marbles were supposed to be on the Parthenon. For many works of art, a museum is an artificial setting - a zoo, not a natural habitat. — Virginia Postrel

Tell the story, gather the events, repeat them. Pattern is a matter of upkeep. Otherwise the weave relaxes back to threads picked up by birds to make their nests. Repeat, or the story will fall and all the king's horses and all the king's men ... Repeat, and cradle the pieces carefully, or events will scatter like marbles on a wooden floor. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Do glassmakers not have the ability to knead their own agates, marbles and rock crystals? — Emile Galle

I'm fine.My father's an arse, and my mum is dying and-oh my God,I'm so pissed." St. Clair looked at me again. His eyes were glassy like black marbles. "Pissed.Pissed.Pissed."
"We know you're pissed at your dad," I said. "It's okay. You're right, he's a jerk." I mean what was I supposed to say? He just found out his mother has cancer.
"Pissed is British for 'drunk,'" Mer said.
"Oh," I said. "Well. You're definitely that, too."
Meanwhile,The Couple was fighting. "Where have you been?" Rashmi asked. "You said you'd be home three hours ago!"
Josh rolled his eyes. "Out.We've been out. Someone had to help him-"
"And you call that helping? He's completely wasted. Catatonic. And you! God,you smell like car exhaust and armpits-"
"He couldn't drink alone."
"You were supposed to be watching out for him! What if something happened?"
"Beer. Liquor. Thatsswhat happened. Don't be such a prude,Rash. — Stephanie Perkins

When my dad was young he shot marbles. When I was young I played Marble Madness on my Nintendo Entertainment System. — Kevin James Breaux

You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles mean to us. They are our pride. They are our sacrifices. They are our noblest symbol of excellence. They are a tribute to the democratic philosophy. They are our aspirations and our name. They are the essence of Greekness. — Melina Mercouri

To me, life is like the back nine in golf. Sometimes you play better on the back nine. You may not be stronger, but hopefully you're wiser. And if you keep most of your marbles intact, you can add a note of wisdom to the coming generation. — Clint Eastwood

If you can't move your brush good, just move your face. — Jenna Marbles

If you want to be like someone, there's nothing stopping you from modeling yourself after someone else. You don't have to BE them - that's not your job in life. Your job in life is not to be someone else. You just want to be as good at being you as that person is at being them. — Jenna Marbles

If so men's memories not a monument be,
None shalt thou have. Warm hearts, and not cold stone,
Must mark thy grave, or thou shalt lie, unknown.
Marbles keep not themselves; how then, keep thee? — John Vance Cheney

I think as you get older you become more of who you always were. You become a more concentrated version of yourself. You really learn who you are, why you're unique, who you've always been [ ... ] There's a winnowing away of nonessentials, sometimes essentials, it's true, but what remains is your core, your essence, the real 'you,' and you realize you're still you without what you've lost as long as you still have all your marbles
or most of them anyway. — Stacey McGlynn

His dad's gruff voice interrupted his pitiful thoughts.
"Can I be frank?"

"Sure. Can I be beans?" Without even having to look up, Dex knew what his dad was doing. "Stop. You know how I hate when you do that."

"Do what?" Tony grunted.

"Do that puckered ass thing with your lips."

"And you know all about puckered asses."

Dex arched an eyebrow at his dad. "You know, at times I wonder who the grown-up is here."

The elevator pinged and they exited into a long white hall with dark gray flooring. "And I wonder if you've lost more than a few marbles. Like the entire bag. — Charlie Cochet

If there is a true measure of a person's soul, if there is a single gauge of real divinity, of how beautifully a fellow human honors this life, has genuine spiritual fire and is full of honest love and compassion, it has to be right there, in the eyes.
The Dalai Lama's eyes sparkle and dance with laughter and unbridled love. The Pope's eyes are dark and glazed, bleak as obsidian marbles. Pat Robertson's eyes are rheumy and hollow, like tiny potholes of old wax. Goldman Sachs cretins, well, they don't use their own eyes at all; they just steal someone else's. — Mark Morford

Then they would roll these handfuls of cloud in their fingers until they turned into what looked like large white marbles. Then they would toss the marbles to one side and quickly grab more bits of cloud and start over again. — Roald Dahl

He'd noticed that his grandson was working too hard, and he was the one who told him about the marbles. He told it this way. He said that the average life span for men was around seventy-five years. That meant thirty-nine hundred Saturdays - to play when you were a kid and to be with your family when you got older and wiser." "I see," I said. "Or to play once you got older. Or even to give lectures to anyone who'll listen." "Shush, Alex. Now, listen. So the grandfather figured out that his grandson, who was forty-three, had about sixteen hundred and sixty Saturdays left in his life. Statistically speaking. So what he did was he bought two large jars and filled them with beautiful cat's-eye marbles. He gave them to his grandson. And he told him that every Saturday, he should take one marble out of the jar. Just one, and just as a reminder that he had only so many Saturdays left, and that they were precious — James Patterson

In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colors. In France, meliora probant, deteriora sequuntur
the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the Eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are poor decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain, they are all curtains
a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous. — Edgar Allan Poe