Mat Quotes & Sayings

I don't know, Benes. I'm not sure I've ever really understood women for that kind of commitment.' He flipped his beer mat up int the air with his index finger and caught it in his hand. — F.C. Malby

Mat, a very wise woman once told me that time would heal my wounds, that time smoothed everything over. I didn't believe her. Only — Robert Jordan

It's very, very simple. You sit, either in a chair or on a prayer stool or mat, and allow your heart to open toward that invisible but always present Origin of all that exists. — Cynthia Bourgeault

Compromise is the welcome mat to deception. — Bill Johnson

When he had accompanied his father on drumming errands he noticed how high caste men and women treated them as inferior. They had to enter from the back door and wait near the kitchen or at a side veranda and sit on low benches or reed mats. They were never offered a decent seat. At meals times they were never invited to eat at the main table with the family or other guests. Instead, they had to eat the food served to them on the reed mat. This they ate in silence while the patrons sat at a lavishly laid table and enjoyed their food amidst chat and cheer. — Swarnakanthi Rajapakse

Burn me," Mat said, throwing on the shirt he dug out of the bundle. "I'll give you a hundred Tar Valon marks if you do it, just so I can tell the story. — Robert Jordan

If you want to experience all of the successes and pleasure in life, you have to be willing to accept all the pain and failure that comes with it. — Mat Hoffman

And we were taught to play golf. Golf epitomizes the tame world. On a golf course nature is neutered. The grass is clean, a lawn laundry that wipes away the mud, the insect, the bramble, nettle and thistle, an Eezy-wipe lawn where nothing of life, dirty and glorious, remains. Golf turns outdoors into indoors, a prefab mat of stultified grass, processed, pesticided, herbicided, the pseudo-green of formica sterility. Here, the grass is not singing. The wind cannot blow through it. Dumb expression, greenery made stupid, it hums a bland monotone in the key of the mono-minded. No word is emptier than a golf tee. No roots, it has no known etymology, it is verbal nail polish. Worldwide, golf is an arch act of enclosure, a commons fenced and subdued for the wealthy, trampling serf and seedling. The enemy of wildness, it is a demonstration of the absolute dominion of man over wild nature. — Jay Griffiths

Has anyone ever told you that you should wear a hat? It would fit the missing eye quite well.'
-Kathana to Mat — Robert Jordan

Mat, on the other hand, seemed to have unlimited faith in me. Maybe he'd lend me some if I asked nicely. — Tracy Lane

Kukurukuuu,' our big rooster crowed as usual and it nearly put me off my sleep. My eyes were neither open nor close. In trying to go back to sleep I rolled to both sides on my small wooden bed, covered with a mat. The room was partially dark and warm, sleepless rats busy under my bed in search of food. — Obehi Peter Ewanfoh

Mat - Red and Jayne's Matt, Frankie's Matt, my Matt - died of a broken heart. — Sarah Ockler

When I set out to write, I want to write something that will rip your heart out. — Mat Kearney

There are many ways to portray darkness and evil and it isn't all in being mean and tough. — Mat McNerney

Don't apologize for all the tears you've cried, you've been way too strong now for all your life. — Mat Kearney

I don't care if you make a print on a bath mat, just as long as it is a good print. — Edward Weston

The stories that are too personally vulnerable to write are the ones that must be told. — Mat Kearney

Okay, here's the secret. It's not really a secret, but I'll frame it to you as one. The same people who despise you for identifying as mixed? Those are the same people who, when you do identify as black, despise you for not being black enough. And there's nothing you can actually do to be black enough, for them. Because it's not really how you act that they despise. It's you. Your very existence." She — Mat Johnson

Even drunk, I knew any escape plan that involved going to Detroit, Michigan, was a harbinger of doom. — Mat Johnson

The San Francisco skyline sparkles in the distance, the bay spread out before it like a shark-infested welcome mat. — T.T. Monday

My weak suit is whatever each reader hates about each book. — Mat Johnson

The sociopaths - that's the real problem. The whole street demeanor is about pretending to be a sociopath as well so that the real ones can't find you. — Mat Johnson

VIKRAM SHANKAR SQUINTED DOWN the long metal barrel. Framed squarely in the sight, not two hundred feet away, the white tiger sat on its haunches, its lower jaw drooping, ribs rippling under a mat of chocolate-striped fur. A sweet shot. Vikram's right finger closed over the trigger. He inhaled slowly, deliberately. Too seasoned a hunter to let the thrill overcome judgment, he took his time, savoring the anticipation. — Phoenix Sullivan

Stepping onto the bath mat, that was also done in that god-awful deep pinky red, he toweled himself off.
Still erect.
Glancing at his fighting clothes, he found himself loath to put them upon his skin. Rough. Scratchy. Dirty.
Mayhap the feminine environment was contaminating him.
Xcor ended up in the big bed, naked, upon his back.
Still erect. — J.R. Ward

The children of the Fulcrum are all different: different ages, different colors, different shapes. Some speak Sanze-mat with different accents, having originated from different parts of the world. One girl has sharp teeth because it is her race's custom to file them; another boy has no penis, though he stuffs a sock into his underwear after every shower; another girl has rarely had regular meals and wolfs down every one like she's still starving. (The instructors keep finding food hidden in and around her bed. They make her eat it, all of it, in front of them, even if it makes her sick.) One cannot reasonably expect sameness out of so much difference, and it makes no sense for Damaya to be judged by the behavior of children who share nothing save the curse of orogeny with her. — N.K. Jemisin

In conclusion, I would like to point out the grave risk authorities are taking by burying the Carrie White affair under the bureaucratic mat - and I am speaking specifically of the so-called White Commission. The desire among politicians to regard TK as a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon seems very strong, and while this may be understandable it is not acceptable. The possibility of a recurrence, genetically speaking, is 99 per cent. It's time we planned now for what may be ... — Stephen King

And that's the beginning of the primary conversation in African American literature, right there: the African descendant explaining to the European descendant about how white people's actions are affecting the lives of black people.* In — Mat Johnson

The box room. No bigger than a coffin. It would be like being buried. Maybe she wouldn't keep her Barbies after all. She would make a huge bonfire in the back garden. She would burn her clothes. She would burn all her old toys (except for her old teddy bear Rasputin, obviously - he was more of a guru and personal trainer than a toy). She would burn her CDs and her CD player. She would burn all her makeup. She would shave all her hair off and burn that. She would wear only a pair of Oriental black pajamas. She would sleep in the box room on a small mat made out of rushes. The only item in the room would be a plain white saucer for her tears. Then they'd be sorry. — Sue Limb

But I'd done what I could to warm the place up. I'd started with a welcome mat. It had a happy face on it and was bright and colorful. It didn't say "Welcome." It said "!!!WELCOME!!!"
I knew he wouldn't like it. I considered it more of an amusing test to see how open he was to change. He'd let me move in with him, but how flexible was he really willing to be?
It disappeared the day after I placed it by the front door. It was just
poof!
gone. When I imagined the shocked look on his face when he would have first seen it, a spot of wacky and whimsical color in his otherwise monochromatic world, I started to laugh hysterically. — Michelle Rowen

Tears and grief are good for reflection, moving on is still the best solution. — Mat Luthfi

I loathe most crossover music. Yet I like to think when it comes to Code it's something different. — Mat McNerney

I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar - that's wonderful. — Raymond Chandler

Rand, maybe that's the answer they give to everybody. Those snake people, I mean. Got to Rhuidean. Maybe we don't have to be here at all.' He did not believe it, but with that fog staring him in the face ...
Rand turned his head to look at him, not speaking. Finally he said, 'They never mentioned Rhuidean to me, Mat.'
'Oh, burn me,' he muttered. — Robert Jordan

I never play all new stuff, because you got to "dance with the girl that brought you" what is that saying? You got to play the songs that got you there, so I love playing the songs from my very first record. — Mat Kearney

I prefer formal techniques, and use sonnets and rhyme, any manner of scheme to give a shape and order-of feeling as well as argument-to a poem. But all my life, I've also been a person who's made his bed in the morning and picks up the bath mat. That's what I mean by temperament. Whether genetic or acquired, I have a disposition to arrangements. One is born with this, as if with blue eyes or a weak heart. Do you think Allen Ginsberg ever put the cap back on his toothpaste? — J. D. McClatchy

You ain't as hard as you act.
When I GPS 'pussy,' I end up at your welcome mat ... — Vakill

There's something wrong with that boy." Clay sounded mystified. "He's talented, ain't no one gonna argue that, but yeah ... something."
Sweaty, tired, and sore, Romeo sat on the mat in the massive martial arts center Clay owned with Jules and Wyatt. While trying to catch his breath, he watched Tino move to the beat of his own drummer as he worked out using a punching bag. With white headphones in his ears, his brother bounced and danced and kicked at that stuffed sack of beans, and for the life of him, Romeo couldn't tell if he was trying to hurt the thing or date it. — Kele Moon

I am not an evangelist. I am not a preacher. I am a musician. That is what I know how to do. I know how to write songs. I know how to write things that relate to my heart. I feel that I talk about God in every song, in everything I do - all of it! I really do not know how to respond. I do not relate to that. — Mat Kearney

I've learned to fall like the BJJ player, to protect the body through controlling the distribution of force by slapping the mat with hands open. With hands open. Hands open. Open. O Pen. — Cameron Conaway

How peaceful it was, with the light evening breeze stirring the small leaves of the grapevine that clustered around the electric bulb, making the shadows move and change on the yellow mat below. For a moment he pushed aside the thought of money. From time to time the dark water beside them rippled audibly, as if a tiny fish had come to the surface for an instant and then darted beneath. It was in peaceful moments such as this, his father had said, that men were given to know just a little of what paradise was like, so that they might yearn for it with all their soul,and strive during their time on earth to be worthy of going there. — Paul Bowles

You never leave a band like DHG. There's very few who are insane enough to be a part of something like that and you just can't take it out of you that easily! — Mat McNerney

It's not the circumstances that determine who you're gonna be but how you deal with these problems and pains that come your way. — Mat Kearney

After the sprout had broken through the (surface of) the ground," the handbook continues, the farmer should say a prayer to Ninkilim, the goddess of field mice and vermin, lest they harm the growing grain; he should also scare off the flying birds. When the barley has grown sufficiently to fill the narrow bottoms of the furrows, it is time to water it; and when it "stands high as (the
straw of) a mat in the middle of a boat," it is time to water it a second time. He is to water it a third time when it is "royal" barley, that is, when it has reached its full height. Should he then notice a reddening of the wet grain, it is the dread samana-dis- ease, which endangers the crops. If the barley is doing well, however, he is to water it a fourth time and thus obtain an extra yield of 10 per cent. — Samuel Noah Kramer

Once the smoke of the market crash clears off, you know, the Internet will pick back up and go. Take a look at what's happening to some of the big companies like eBay and Yahoo, the publicly traded stocks. You know, they're all coming back up off the mat now. — Michael Nesmith

Everyone's attention span these days is limited to how long it takes to flick the iPod wheel on to the next song. — Mat McNerney

The Seanchan in the room seemed stunned that Mat had suddenly stripped to the waist. He did not see why, They had servants that wore much less. Light, but they did.
"I'm tempted to do the same as you," Min muttered, grabbing the front of her dress.
Mat Froze, then sputtered. He must have swallowed a fly or something. "Burn me," he said, throwing on the shirt he dug out of the bundle. "I'll give you a hundred Tar Valon marks if you do it, just so I can tell the story."
That earned him a glare, through he did not know why. She was the one talking about striding about like a bloody Aiel Maiden on her way to the sweat tent.
Min did not do it, and he was almost sad. Almost. He had to be careful around Min. He was certain that a smile in the wrong place would earn him a knifing not only from her, but from Tuon, and Mat was much happier with only one knife stuck on him at a time. — Robert Jordan

I picked up a mug with the complicated name of a medication stamped across the side, and a slogan about Treating Today for Tomorrow. They're handed out to places like this by visiting drug companies. Last time I went in the office to borrow the Nursing Dictionary, I counted three mugs, a mouse mat, a bunch of pens, two Post-it note booklets and the wall clock - all sporting the brands of different medicines. It's like being in prison and having to look at adverts for fucking locks. — Nathan Filer

There is no mat space for malcontents or dissenters. One must neither celebrate insanely when he wins, nor sulk when he loses. He accepts victory professionally, humbly; he hates defeat, but makes no poor display of it. — Dan Gable

He expected the other man to be dead - not many could survive a thirty-foot fall to cobblestones with another's weight on top of him - but what he had not expected was to see the fellow's dagger driven to the hilt into his own heart. Such an ordinary-looking man to have tried to kill him. Mat did not think he would even have noticed him in a crowded room. — Robert Jordan

I don't know. They could put up a warning sign or something. Hello. Welcome to Hindstrap. We will murder you in the night and eat your bloody face if you stay past sunset. Try the pies. Martna Maily makes them fresh daily. — Robert Jordan

Mat had tried to make her say she saw a hat floating around Mat's head. That would persuade Tuon to stop trying to get rid of his, would it not? — Robert Jordan

In the past stories have been what tethers us to the world and they've made us who we are. — Mat McNerney

Every time I see open space I see a mat on the floor — Renzo Gracie

There was no apology in her posture, no fear or regret in her soft eyes. The sword flashed in a silvery arc, and her head tumbled onto the straw mat. The ivory comb slid out, freeing her hair, and her lifeless eyes stared, wide open.
Yamazato wept. She'd done it all for love, and so - just now - had he. — Kenneth Edward Lim

It is a great moment in every freak's life when he or she finds out that at least they are not the only one. — Mat Johnson

Oliver knocked on the door, trying to keep his fear in check. Dominic didn't answer. Oliver looked around the porch for a hidden key, frantically searching under the welcome mat, but to no avail. — Yawatta Hosby

Sweetbuns?" "Tradition among us Two Rivers folk." "Never heard of that tradition." "It's very obscure." "Ah, I see. And what did you do to those buns?" "Sprinklewort," Mat said. "It'll turn her mouth blue for a week, maybe two. And she won't share the sweetbuns with anyone, except maybe her Warders. Joline is addicted to the things. She must have eaten seven or eight bags' worth since we got to Caemlyn." "Nice," Thom said, knuckling his mustache. "Childish, though." "I'm trying to get back to my basic roots," Mat said. "You know, recapture some of my lost youth. — Robert Jordan

I think Nouveau Gloaming is a classic black metal record and I would hate to be a band that kept trying to recapture the same essence, but failing, for the rest of its days. — Mat McNerney

Head into the children's bedroom, where our babysitter, Teri, is presiding over a massive game of Twister. Minnie doesn't understand Twister, but she understands rolling around on the mat, getting in everyone's way, so that's what she's doing. — Sophie Kinsella

Mat gaped at them as they reined in before him and the others. "Is this...? Is this all of you?" they were little more than a hundred. Red saw and realized that somehow he had know that they would be.
"It takes more than bravery to bind a man to the Horn." Arthur Hawkwing's voice was deep and carrying, a voice used to giving commands.
"Or a woman," Birgitte said sharply.
"Or a woman," Hawkwing agreed. "Only a few are bound to the Wheel, spun out again and again to work the will of the Wheel in the Pattern of the Ages. You could tell him, Lews Therin, could you but remember when you wore flesh. — Robert Jordan

When it comes to belts and rank, I don't care what belt I am; I don't care what rank I am. I'm proud that I've achieved high ranks through some great instructors around the world, but ultimately, the mat doesn't lie. — Jason David Frank

Oh, well," Mat said idly, "she's just the Dragon Reborn's woman."
(about Min) — Robert Jordan

Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today. — Robert Jordan

Never choose the card a man wants you to. Mat should have realized that. It was one of the oldest cons in creation. — Robert Jordan

I like what's going on in Finland, with the rebirth of Beherit. I also like a band called Oranssi Pazuzu and a band called Spiderpact. There's a great scene there where they don't really care what's going on elsewhere and create music in their own vacuum. — Mat McNerney

Mat snorted. "I don't want to be any bloody hero. — Robert Jordan

The religion and it's many barbed indoctrinating tendrils just start to become what makes you who you are, so you have to kind of destroy yourself to be able to rebuild yourself and make yourself whole again. — Mat McNerney

Genuine trust involves allowing another to matter and have an impact in our lives. For that reason, many who hate and do battle with God trust Him more deeply than those whose complacent faith permits an abstract and motionless stance before Him. Those who trust God most are those whose faith permits them to risk wrestling with Him over the deepest questions of life. Good hearts are captured in a divine wrestling match; fearful, doubting hearts stay clear of the mat. — Dan B. Allender

The Consul gripped the edges of the mat with fingers gone white. He had tied the strap of his duffel bag around his belt, otherwise the bag would have tumbled off to a glacier far below. — Dan Simmons

Just because you've written a song doesn't mean that you have pulled through. There are definitely songs where I embodied someone else's pain and that was purely to serve the listener because I knew they needed to hear something. But most of the good stuff comes from my life. — Mat Kearney

Always half an hour a day where it's just me and my yoga mat. — Karen Walker

P.s. In case you don't know what "Do what needs to be done" means, it means that I want you to go bloody slaughter as many of the Sharan channelers as you can. I'll bet you a full Tar Valon mark-it's only been shaved on the sides a little-that you can't kill twenty.-MC
missive from Mat to Galad — Robert Jordan

In my head, I was getting 'gangsta,' which I've always felt showed greater intent than getting 'gangster' in that it expresses a willful unlawfulness even upon its own linguistic representation. — Mat Johnson

Emily just knew that the grocery store clerk's cousin had slipped on a bath mat and fallen out a second-story open window only to be saved because the woman landed on a discarded mattress.
But what interested Emily most about the incident was how the cousin had subsequently met a man in physical therapy who introduced her to his half brother who she ended up marrying and then running over with her car a year later after a heated argument. And that man, it was discovered, had been the one to dump the mattress in her yard.
He'd saved her so that she could later cripple him.
Emily found that not ironic but intriguing.
Because everything, she believed, was connected. — Holly Goldberg Sloan

Here's one way to tell if you're driving how I want you to - nay, how America needs you to. Whenever I drive my dad around, I see him mashing his feet into the floor mat. The old man is using imaginary brakes because I'm driving so hard. When your passenger is trying to stop the vehicle with his feet like Fred Flintstone, this is the ultimate tip of the cap. — Adam Carolla

Poems, for me, begin as a social engagement. I want to establish a kind of sociability or even hospitality at the beginning of a poem. The title and the first few lines are a kind of welcome mat where I am inviting the reader inside. — Billy Collins

What did the mat say to the door? You must be really aDOORable to open up to everyone who knock at you. And I welcome everyone and what do I get? People stepping all over me — Ana Claudia Antunes

After facing backlash from customers, Subway says it will remove a chemical in its bread that is also found in yoga mats. Some people were like, 'You mean I've been eating a dangerous chemical?' While most people were like, 'You mean I can eat my yoga mat?' — Jimmy Fallon

There are two types of lazy bosses. One is so lazy that they make you do not only your own work but theirs too. Worse, they lie to you about it, unloading all responsibility for their actions. The other is so lazy that not only do they not do their own work but they can't even be bothered to provide you work to do. These bosses lie as well, but only to themselves, passively. The first is the hardest boss to work for, the second the easiest. — Mat Johnson

The type of adverts to be found on television and in glossy magazines are visually designed to have a power over the mind before they can even be questioned. The dark side of my work, primarily concerns the internal mechanisms of visual imagery and how these mechanisms address the mind. — Mat Collishaw

The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small it always was! — George Orwell

Being alone is best. I mean, it's true, isn't it? In the end you'll be absolutely alone; therefore, being alone is natural. If you accept that, nothing bad can happen. That's why I shut myself away in my six-mat one-room apartment. — Tatsuhiko Takimoto

Well, Mat thought, guess I can take that. For now. — Robert Jordan

I was talking to a homeless man at the laundry mat recently, and he said that when we reduce Christian spirituality to math we defile the Holy. I thought that was very beautiful and comforting because I have never been good at math. — Donald Miller

By the way, I saved Moiraine. Chew on that as you try to decide which of the two of us is winning.
-Mat — Robert Jordan

The songs that you start to write that you are a little scared of can be the ones that you have to tell. — Mat Kearney

And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat ... I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after I had children I would feel differently, I wouldn't want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state. — Sylvia Plath

What I get on a yoga mat, and from a yoga teacher, has been more beneficial onstage than any other workshop I've ever done. — Jason Mraz

As an artist, you just want to keep creating, keep finding a place that really inspires you that feels fresh and new and keep it exciting. — Mat Kearney

Before the 90s, black metal wasn't a selling tool [and didn't] have money behind it. Then it became a pop sensation. Now that the record industry has collapsed and started to rot, things are livening up a bit again. — Mat McNerney

You are as eloquent as ever, Mat," Egwene said dryly. "Do you still have your pet fox?"
"I do," Mat said. "He's snuggled up nice and warm. — Robert Jordan

Every misogynist came out of a woman. — Mat Johnson

Being involved in movies is my passion. What's gotten me off the mat is the sense of the child in all of us. I feel like the same guy as I did back in the mail room, but with more wisdom, from the depths of experience to the heights. — Mark Canton

If it burns, blows up or acts like alien blood then call me. — Alexander Fontana

You will serve the Cyrstal Throne well. It would be a shame to see you assassinated too early. I will make certain that the first I send after you are newly trained, so that you may stop them with ease.
-General Galgan to Mat — Robert Jordan

Let God's grace be the mosque, and devotion the prayer mat. Let the Quran be the good conduct. — Guru Nanak

Most every album - and especially metal albums these days - are made in a way that you can grow tired of them very easily: They're made to be dissected and played on radio, released as singles or stuck on at parties. — Mat McNerney

Women," Mat declared as he rode Pips down the dusty, little-used road, "are like mules." He frowned. "Wait. No. Goats. Women are like goats. Except every flaming one thinks she's a horse instead, and a prize racing mare to boot. Do you understand me, Talmanes?"
"Pure poetry, Mat," Talmanes said, tamping the tabac down into his pipe. — Robert Jordan

He doesn't know what to make of me," Mat said softly.
"How very uncommon. I can't think of anyone else who has reacted that way to you, Mat. — Robert Jordan

On the way out to the car, Philip turns to me. "How could you be so stupid? I shrug, stung in spite of myself. "I thought I grew out of it." Philip pulls out his key fob and presses the remote to unlock his Mercedes. I slide into the passenger side, brushing coffee cups off the seat and onto the floor mat, where crumpled printouts from MapQuest soak up any spilled liquid. "I hope you mean sleepwalking," Philip says, "since you obviously didn't grow out of stupid. — Holly Black