My Recent Quotes & Sayings

As for human contact, I'd lost all appetite for it. Mankind has, as you may have noticed, become very inventive about devising new ways for people to avoid talking to each other and I'd been taking full advantage of the most recent ones. I would always send a text message rather than speak to someone on the phone. Rather than meeting with any of my friends, I would post cheerful, ironically worded status updates on Facebook, to show them all what a busy life I was leading. And presumably people had been enjoying them, because I'd got more than seventy friends on Facebook now, most of them complete strangers. But actual, face-to-face, let's-meet-for-a-coffee-and-catch-up sort of contact? I seemed to have forgotten what that was all about. — Jonathan Coe

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive. — Emma Watson

I am asking the state of Israel to revoke my citizenship. This wish for revocation of citizenship is neither new nor recent. Now, however, it is supported by the new Revocation of Citizenship Law. — Mordechai Vanunu

Gazing for the first time upon this amphibian terrain, this bog of nightmare, I should have felt excited; but the heat and recent events were weighing me down; my upper lip was still childishly wet with nose-goo, but I felt oppressed by a feeling of having moved directly from an overlong and dribbling childhood into a premature (though still leaky) old age. — Salman Rushdie

And quit baring your fangs at me. It's making me nervous."
"Good," Simon said. "if you want to know why, it's because you smell like blood."
"It's my cologne. Eau de Recent Injury." Jace raised his left hand. — Cassandra Clare

I'm quite shocked by the recent British media stories about an alleged brawl between myself and Dereck Chisora. I am a professional prize fighter and let my fists do the talking only inside the ring. I don't want to comment on Chisora's psychological issues. — Wladimir Klitschko

When other girls had tea parties on the playground, I brought out my secondhand Ouija board and attempted to raise the dead. While my classmates gave book reports on The Wind In The Willows or Charlotte's Web, I did mine on tattered, paperback copies of Stephen King novels that I'd borrowed from my grandmother. Instead of Sweet Valley High, I read books about zombies and vampires. Eventually, my third grade teacher called my mother in to discuss her growing concerns over my behavior, and my mom nodded blithely, but failed to see what the problem was. When Mrs. Johnson handed her my recent book report on Pet Sematary,, my mom wrinkled her forehead with concern and disapproval. "Oh, I see,"she said disappointingly, as she turned to me. "You spelled 'cemetery' wrong." Then I explained that Stephen King had spelled it that way on purpose, and she nodded, saying, "Ah. Well, good enough for me. — Jenny Lawson

I'd suffered many losses in recent years after my father mother uncle aunt and cousin had all passed away. In her final years my mother often lamented that there was no one alive who had known her as a girl and I was starting to understand how spooked she'd felt. I wasn't sure I could take any more abandonments. One succumbs so easily to mind spasms, worry spasms. [p. 95] — Diane Ackerman

I've tried to show in my most recent book, the 'Irresistible Fairytale', that in order to talk about any genre, particularly what we call simple genre - a myth, a legend, an anecdote, a tall tale, and so on - we really have to understand something about the origin of stories all together. — Jack Zipes

In recent weeks it has come to my attention that many caravans have met with disaster; they have not gotten through."
I grunted wisely. "Probably ran out of water. That's the thing about deserts. Dry."
"Indeed. A fascinating analysis. But survivors reaching Hebron report differently: monsters fell upon them in the wastes."
"What, fell upon them in a squashed-them kind of way?"
"More the leaped-out-and-slew-them kind. ( ... ) — Jonathan Stroud

Within this work are places where you will see I have done some unforgivably stupid things; here I can say only that I am not perfect. Throw stones if you must, but have a care for your own house! I also offer a part-excuse, part-explanation: I am subject to influences from my most recent meals. I have not edited those parts to make myself seem better than I am; they stand as they were written. — Garon Whited

I'm definitely a night owl. I get going about the time my wife crashes and goes to bed. And in some sense, I've had to learn to be more of a cat napper in recent years because Perl development, Perl design and development, has become a worldwide phenomenon - not just mailing lists, but RSC channels, Twitter even. This all happens 24 hours a day. And people come up with questions at any time of the day or night. — Larry Wall

It's my cologne. Eau de Recent Injury." (Jace) — Cassandra Clare

You've never dated any guys?'
I shrug. 'Haven't even kissed one.' And then I add, 'Well, in recent years.'
'Then how do you know you don't like guys?'
'I don't know, Freddie,' I say, trying to hide my irritation. 'How many boys did you kiss before you realized you were straight? — Julie Murphy

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera) — E. E. Cummings

Sadly, today there are only a few remaining speakers of kakadu or gagadju. The work, then, is concerned with my feelings about this place, its landscape, its change of seasons, its dry season and its wet, its cycle of life and death the melodic material in Kakadu, as in much of my recent music, was suggested by the contours and rhythms of Aboriginal chant. — Peter Sculthorpe

I actually think that 'States of Union' will be a lifelong endeavor for me. It won't take up all my energy as it has in recent years, but I imagine that I will always continue to add to the body of work - the project of documentation will never be entirely complete. — Alix Smith

I have a professional acquaintance whose recent eyelid job has left her with a permanent expression of such poleaxed astonishment that she looks at all times as if she had just read one of my books. — Florence King

In recent years, the choice of drugs on these reservations and throughout my district has been methamphetamines. It has destroyed the rule of law among the reservation people. It is killing our tribal youth in this country. — Rick Renzi

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

Carol would not be a bad one to [settle down] with. She's pretty and bright, and maybe this is what love is. She's good company: her interests broaden almost every day. She reads three books to my one, and I read a lot. We talk far into the night. She still doesn't understand the first edition game: Hemingway, she says, reads just as well in a two-bit paperback as he does in a $500 first printing. I can still hear myself lecturing her the first time she said that. Only a fool would read a first edition. Simply having such a book makes life in general and Hemingway in particular go better when you do break out the reading copies. I listened to myself and thought, This woman must think I'm a government-inspected horse's ass. Then I showed her my Faulkners, one with a signature, and I saw her shiver with an almost sexual pleasure as she touched the paper where he signed. Faulkner was her most recent god[.] — John Dunning

I've begun so late, really only in recent years, to truly love the world ... Out of gratitude, I want to call my book on political theories Amor Mundi . — Hannah Arendt

From the moment I stepped foot in Music City I have had a love affair with the people and burgeoning culinary scene. This city's long, highly-respected cultural history, coupled with the recent growth and development is inspiring. I could not be happier with my decision and I'm truly excited to call Nashville my home. — Maneet Chauhan

I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion. — Samuel Alito

HANNAH: You had a vision.
PRIOR: A vision. Thank you, Maria Ouspenskaya. I'm not so far gone I can be assuaged by pity and lies.
HANNAH: I don't have pity. It's just not something I have.
(Little pause)
One hundred and seventy years ago, which is recent, an angel of God appeared to Joseph Smith in upstate
New York, not far from here. People have visions.
PRIOR: But that's preposterous, that's ...
HANNAH: It's not polite to call other people's beliefs preposterous.
He had great need of understanding. Our Prophet. His desire made prayer. His prayer made an angel. The angel was real. I believe that.
PRIOR: I don't. And I'm sorry but it's repellent to me. So much of what you believe.
HANNAH: What do I believe?
PRIOR: I'm a homosexual. With AIDS. I can just imagine what you ...
HANNAH: No you can't. Imagine. The things in my head.
You don't make assumptions about me, mister; I won't make them about you. — Tony Kushner

Inevitably I draw on my own relationships when I write, so if I'm writing about a fight between a husband and his wife, of course I'm going to think about a recent fight with my husband. Or if I'm writing about sisters, of course I'm going to think about my sister. — Emily Giffin

I did not think I could stand a Christmas at my parents' house, with a plastic tree and no snow and the TV going constantly. It was not as if my parent were so anxious to have me, either. In recent years they had fallen in with a gabby, childless couple, older than they were, called the MacNatts. Mr MacNatt was an auto-parts salesman; Mrs MacNat was shaped like a pigeon and sold Avon. — Donna Tartt

I've done this sort of thing before. Not prophecies so much, but you'd be surprised how many people want to realign their ancestral lines to seem nobler, or rewrite their family history to remove more morally questionable episodes." He paused to recall a recent rewrite. "One lord wanted the murderers removed from his family line. His family was so corrupt, he ended up with three virgin births, two generations removed entirely and a lady who gave birth at the age of two. Still, no one questions it as there is evidence in the archives." Bubo smugly tapped a book. "There is one thing though, faking a prophecy in the past is easy, you already know the result. How will you make this come true in the future?"
"I have someone in mind for it, but I'm not sure he'll go for it. But then prophecy is all optional anyway." Corvid looked up as if a thought had occurred to him. "I'd best go check on my man, I've not met him yet. — Dylan Perry

My recent adventures have made me quite the philosopher, especially at night, when I hear naught but the stream grinding boulders into pebbles through an unhurried eternity. — David Mitchell

I will not be speaking here about skinheads or militias or survivalists or Klansmen, or even about the unashamed racism that has emerged in public life in recent years, not only in America. I will be speaking about a deeper tectonics that, in my opinion, produces the energy behind all these surface tremors and disruptions. If my remarks seem political, the whole of our life together is political, and to banish whatever sounds like politics from a conversation about where we are going and what we are doing is to trivialize and disable the conversation. — Marilynne Robinson

If and when I found him and he hadn't got his danger fix, he'd be way more than just disgruntled. More like royally ticked off. Not the best time to share my recent revelation. One that shocked the heck out of me. One I wasn't sure how to phrase.
"Jake, you're the love of my life."
Ugh.
"You complete me."
Too Jerry Maguire.
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
Gawd, no.
I felt my lip curl as I pictured him fixing his intense blue eyes on mine, waiting for me to explain. As if I could. This sudden about-face didn't even make sense to me. I just wanted him, dammit, even with his insane stunts, like hang glider tag. — Betsy Cook Speer

STARING INTO THE ABYSS by Richard Thomas is an outstanding book, a grim tapestry of broken lives and shattered dreams, of dark fantasies and dark reflections. It's one of the better single-author collections I've had the pleasure to read in recent years, and as such, gets my highest recommendation. It's also a fine testament to a talent I suspect we are going to be hearing a lot more from, and soon. — Kealan Patrick Burke

Today I realize that many recent exercises in "deconstructive reading" read as if inspired by my parody. This is parody's mission: it must never be afraid of going too far. If its aim is true, it simply heralds what others will later produce, unblushing, with impassive and assertive gravity. — Umberto Eco

Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, its because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this so strong, the experience so recent, that we can't quite bring ourselves to embrace this idea that you think so much of. As for hat we were like before we met you, I no longer care. No periods of time over which my ancestors held sway, no documentation of complex civilisations, is any comfort to me. Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you. — Jamaica Kincaid

The chairs - turned towards one another in groups of twos and threes - seemed like the seats of ghosts in close conversation with one another. There were sets of two chairs - very close to one another - in the far corners of the room, which spoke of recent whispered flirtations, over cold game pie and iced champagne; there were sets of three and four chairs, that recalled pleasant animated discussions over the latest scandals; there were chairs straight up in a row that still looked starchy, critical, acid, like antiquated dowagers; there were a few isolated, single chairs, close to the table, that spoke of gourmands intent on the most recherche dishes, and others overturned on the floor, that spoke volumes on the subject of my Lord Grenville's cellars. — Emmuska Orczy

On recent events in a New York hotel room: What happened was not just inappropriate, it was more than that, it was a fault; a fault toward my wife, my children, my friends but also a fault toward the French people who placed in me their hope for change. — Dominique Strauss-Kahn

My favorite series of 'Peep Show' is always the most recent one, which I can say with all honesty because I don't write it. It gets better and better. — Robert Webb

I looked where he was tapping.
"Local Girl Missing, Feared Dead"
Beneath it was a photo or me-my most recent school photo. "Oh no." My heart filling with dread, i took the paper from Mr. Smith's hands. "Couldn't they have found a better picture? — Meg Cabot

Whether by this he meant the clergy I know not; though I observed he spoke favourably of that body in France, pointing out that, long before the recent agitations, they had defended the civil rights of the Third Estate, and citing many cases in which the country curates had shown themselves the truest friends of the people: a fact my own observation hath confirmed. I remarked to him that I was surprised to find how little talk there was in Italy of the distracted conditions in France; and this though the country is overrun with French refugees, or emigres, as they call themselves, who bring with them reports that might well excite the alarm of neighbouring governments. He said he had remarked the same indifference, but that this was consonant with the Italian character, which never looked to the morrow; and he added that the mild disposition of the people, and their profound respect for religion, were sufficient assurance against any political excess. To this I could not forbear — Edith Wharton

recent festivals we have been releasing what we call "healing tunnels" where, on some occasions, we have had over 100 people pass through the tunnel formed by our healing team. Recently we saw almost every person healed as they passed through the tunnel. My wife was at the end of the tunnel with a microphone announcing the healings one by one to an astonished crowd of onlookers. This is consistently becoming one of the most exhilarating experiences that we have ever experienced in our — Phil Mason

I had a recent delivery of new fashion plates from Paris, and you hardly glanced at the hairstyles. My husband tells me you are still having difficulty controlling the change. And your cravat has been tied very simply of late, even for evening events. — Gail Carriger

I was born just after the end of World War II, and with my friends in our little suburban backyards in New Jersey, we used to play war a lot. I don't know if boys still play war, they probably do, but we were thrusting ourselves into recent history and we were always fighting either the Nazis or the Japanese. — Paul Auster

I wasn't into fairytales when I was little. I was of the generation of the earlier Disney films where many of the female characters, with the exception of the Maleficent's, were not little girls that I admired ... the little princesses. They weren't characters that I identified with. I think that's very different now for my girls and more recent films. — Angelina Jolie

No, my profile has leaped over recent years, so has my life experience, and I look forward to the next 30 years being even more rewarding and satisfying than the previous 60! — Jonathan King

I want to give just a slight indication of the influence the book has had. I knew that George Orwell, in his second novel, A Clergyman's Daughter , published in 1935, had borrowed from Joyce for his nighttime scene in Trafalgar Square, where Deafie and Charlie and Snouter and Mr. Tallboys and The Kike and Mrs. Bendigo and the rest of the bums and losers keep up a barrage of song snatches, fractured prayers, curses, and crackpot reminiscences. But only on my most recent reading of Ulysses did I discover, in the middle of the long and intricate mock-Shakespeare scene at the National Library, the line 'Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed, clergyman's daughter.' So now I think Orwell quarried his title from there, too. — Christopher Hitchens

I want my testimony to stand on that point. But I would point out that Zona Research Inc. showed we have increased market share among business users, educational users, and government users over the past several months - and that's more recent than the IDC report. — Jim Barksdale

My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don't really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and there are some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care. — Donald Miller

'It's A Wonderful Life' still makes me cry happy tears, and my more recent favorite, 'Elf.' — Mary Page Keller

I try to find a style that matches the book. In the Baroque Cycle, I got infected with the prose style of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, which is my favorite era. It's recent enough that it is easy to read - easier than Elizabethan English - but it's pre-Victorian and so doesn't have the pomposity that is often a problem with 19th-century English prose. It is earthy and direct and frequently hilarious. — Neal Stephenson

I see my life flashing before me when I see people in the audience singing along to something I wrote in the '80s, and they're maybe standing next to someone who knows the more recent stuff. — Dave Pirner

BUT MY RECENT RESEARCH HAS SHOWN ME THAT FEMINISM HAS BECOME AN UNPOPULAR WORD. WOMEN ARE CHOOSING NOT TO IDENTIFY AS FEMINISTS. — Emma Watson

Recent breakthroughs in science show we have just the capacities we need to face our planet's challenges. We're "soft-wired" for cooperation, empathy, fairness, along with a deep need to "make a dent," as social philosopher Erich Fromm put it. My hunch is that one reason depression is a global pandemic is that the dominant mental map denies so many of us expression of these deep needs and capacities. — Frances Moore Lappe

Like many Americans my thoughts and prayers are with the people of London. My deepest sympathies are extended to those who lost a loved one in the recent terror attacks. — Doc Hastings

Hamlet is the human soul as it was, as it is, and as it will be. In conceiving this drama, Shakspeare overstepped the limit fixed even for genius. I can understand Homer and Dante, studied by the light of their epoch. I can comprehend that they could do what they did; but how an Englishman of the seventeenth century could foreknow psychosis, a science of recent growth, will be to me, in spite of my study of Hamlet, an everlasting mystery. Having — Henryk Sienkiewicz

I left Delhi in 1989 and remember very little of how life used to be then. Increasingly, in my recent visits to Delhi, I've started to realize that the city has become intellectually very lively. It makes me want to discover the city over and over again. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Substance abuse is a disease which doesn't go away overnight. I'm working hard to overcome it. I did fail my recent drug test. I'm prepared to face the consequences. — Lindsay Lohan

I am trying to get my paintings a bit lighter in tone, as some of my recent oils have been mistaken for night scenes. — E. J. Hughes

The past is now barely present in my thoughts. I believe the main reason for that is our children, since life with them in the here and now occupies all the space. They even squeeze out the most recent past: Ask me what I did three days ago and I can't remember. Ask me what Vanja was like two years ago, Heidi two months ago, John two weeks ago, and I can't remember. A lot happens in our little everyday life, but it always happens within the same routine, and more than anything else it has changed my perspective of time. For, while previously I saw time as a stretch of terrain that had to be covered, with the future as a distant prospect, hopefully a bright one, and never boring at any rate, now it is interwoven with our life here and in a totally different way. — Karl Ove Knausgard

I reached for the notebook which was always close by. All thoughts of composing epic poems of Greek heroes had left me. The words that often burst from my onto the paper in recent days would be considered mere nothings to the world, but they were everything to me ... They were the pourings of my heart FOR my heart ... — Nancy Moser

While much recent historicist criticism has assumed early nineteenth-century readers attuned to subtle ideological nuances in poetry, actual responses from readers often come closer to clulessness ... It is no surprise that no one understood Blake, but other poets fared not much better ... Coleridge's 'Christabel' was 'the standing enigma which puzzles the curiosity of literary circles. What is it all about?', while another reviewer asked about Shelley, 'What, in the name of wonder on one side, and of common sense on the other, is the meaning of this metaphysical rhapsody about the unbinding of Prometheus?'. Even Keats was condemned for 'his frequent obscurity and confusion of language' and his 'unintelligible quaintness'. Byron, never to be outdone, boasted in 'Don Juan' that not only did he not understand many of his fellow poets, he did not understand himself either: 'I don't pretend that I quite understand / My own meaning when I would be very fine.' ... — Andrew Elfenbein

My most recent novel is written wholly in numbers. — Dan Holloway

But suffering from a life-threatening disease also helped me have a different attitude and perspective. It has given a new intensity to life, for I realize how much I used to take for granted-the love and devotion of my wife, the laughter and playfulness of my grandchildren, the glory of a splendid sunset, the dedication of my colleagues. The disease has helped me acknowledge my own mortality, with deep thanksgiving for the extraordinary things that have happened in my life, not least in recent times. What a spectacular vindication it has been, in the struggle against apartheid, to live to see freedom come, to have been involved in finding the truth and reconciling the differences of those who are the future of our nation. — Desmond Tutu

When it's my turn, I introduce myself as Josh Raymond, seventeen, no previous experience beyond my recent halfhearted experiment with sleeping pills. "The Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect is life," I add, even though no one knows what this means — Jennifer Niven

May I drive?" "You think I'd consider handing over the reins of this remarkable equipage?" He replied with feigned superiority. For generations, the Earls of Blackmoor had prided themselves on having the most current and impressive modes of transportation. The most recent earl was no different, and the brand-new curricle in which they were riding was certain to be the envy of many. "Indeed. I think you'd enjoy the experience of teaching me how." "I've had this curricle for less than a week, Alex. You're not driving." Alex replied with a comic pout, "I shall convince you otherwise, my lord. I warn you." "Indeed? Well you are welcome to try, my lady." He — Sarah MacLean

I recognize that I'm probably the luckiest novelist in recent memory, because Sherman Alexie, a writer I greatly admire, raved about my book on 'The Colbert Report,' and then Mr. Colbert himself urged his viewers to buy it - on his show and on Twitter. — Edan Lepucki

Two years ago," she says, "I was afraid of spiders, suffocation, walls that inch slowly inward and trap you between them,getting thrown out of Dauntless, uncontrollable bleeding, getting run over by a train, my father's death,public humiliation, and kidnapping by men without faces."
Everyone stares blankly at her.
"Most of you will have anywhere from ten to fifteen years in your fear landscapes. That is the average number," she says.
"What's the lowest number someone has gotten?" asks Lynn.
"In recent years," says Lauren, "four."
I have not looked at Tobias since we were in the cafeteria,but I can't help but look at him now. He keeps his eyes trained on the floor. I knew that four was a low number, low enough to merit a nickname,but I didn't know it was less than half the average.
I glare at my feet.He's exceptional. And now he won't even look at me. — Veronica Roth

My turn?" asks the blond from behind me. "Didn't you say she deserved a good spanking for her recent misdemeanours Mike?"
His voice has taken on a husky, carnal quality since our introduction at the bench, and I suspect there is another hard cock waiting for me. I struggle impatiently at the thought.
"Absolutely Niall," Mike replies, "but not here. I want her punished in public, to make sure she remembers the lesson. Sean, pull in at the next layby will you ... — Felicity Brandon

One of the more fatuous remarks I've heard in recent days is that 'My Life,' Clinton's autobiography, is too long and, at almost 1,000 pages, short it is not. But this man was for eight years the President of the most powerful country on earth. — Alastair Campbell

When I was on Broadway, my most recent Broadway show was 'Spring Awakening,' and every night I did a topless scene. — Lea Michele

On my recent trip to Israel, I had the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, and reaffirm our collective responsibility to confront anti-Semitism, prejudice, and intolerance across the world. On this Yom Hashoah, we must accept the full responsibility of remembrance, as nations and as individuals-not simply to pledge "never again," but to commit ourselves to the understanding, empathy and compassion that is the foundation of peace and human dignity. — Barack Obama

If you aren't feeling better soon, we're going to the doctor's. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe and get you out of there, if it comes to that. He towered over me, his spiky blond hair disheveled from our recent make-out session that now seemed so long ago.
My body shuddered, and not just because of my symptoms. Whatever it takes could mean a lot of things to Drake, including - but not limited to - physical violence and total mind control. The darkness of his paranormal talents scared me and seduced me in equal measure. — Kimberly Kinrade

My advice to you is be boring, square, asshole parents ... When I have kids, the most recent CD I will own - Phil Collins, No Jacket Required, and I'll rave about it. 'Do you like rock 'n' roll? 'Cause this is rockin' good stuff, kid.' — Patton Oswalt

Look," she sighed. "You might be a lovely lad, in fairness you look like a lovely lad, but I can't take the chance. My kids wouldn't even be able to remember what I was wearing to tell the police. And all the recent photographs of me are bad, very jowly. I couldn't have them stuck to the lamp posts around the city. On your way, son." (Woman to Matt, when he tried to give her a lift.) — Marian Keyes

I am willing for the participant to commit or not commit himself to the group. If a person wishes to remain psychologically on the sidelines, he has my implicit permission to do so. The group itself may or may not be willing for him to remain in this stance but personally I am willing. One skeptical college administrator said that the main things he had learned was that he could withdraw from personal participation, be comfortable about it, and realize that he would not be coerced. To me, this seemed a valuable learning and one that would make it much more possible for him actually to participate at the next opportunity. Recent reports on his behavior, a full year later, suggest that he gained and changed from his seeming nonparticipation. — Carl R. Rogers

I don't have a reason to lie to you. Not now.' Jace's gaze remained steady. 'And quit baring your fangs at me. It's making me nervous.'
'Good,' Simon said. 'If you want to know why it's because you smell like blood.'
'It's my cologne. Eau de Recent Injury.' Jace raised his left hand. It was a glove of white bandages, stained across the knucles where blood had seeped through. — Cassandra Clare

During a recent life development forum we offered a session on Christian practices. In one of the four weeks we introduced the practice of making the sign of the cross on ourselves. This gesture has become a very powerful experience for me. It is rich with meaning and history and is such a simple way to proclaim and pray my faith with my body. — Doug Pagitt

We girls are supposed to at least have these amazing sexual powers, but in my recent experience this is just a lie told by men to make them feel better about having ALL the power. — Jonathan Franzen

Once again, my colleague Stephen Hawking has upset the apple cart. The event horizon surrounding a black hole was once though to be an imaginary sphere. But recent theories indicate that it may actually be physical, maybe even a sphere of fire. But I don't trust any of these calculations until we have a full-blown string theory calculation, since Einstein's theory by itself is incomplete. — Michio Kaku

I do sometimes strongly hope that in a past life, my most recent life before this, I was absolutely horrible, evil, hideous. Because otherwise - well, hell, to even things up next time around, I'm going to have to pay for this one, am I not? — Vanessa Paradis

In one of my recent books, 'The Success Principles,' I taught 64 lessons that help people achieve what they want out of life. From taking nothing less than 100 percent responsibility for your life to empowering others, these are the fundamentals to success - and to great leadership. — Jack Canfield

I want to express my closeness to the people of the Philippines who have been struck by a strong earthquake, and I invite you to pray for that dear nation, which in recent days has suffered different calamities. — Pope Francis

In my own recent String Trio I attempt to superimpose two quite different sets of formal strategies, both of which, ultimately, refer back to historical precedent. — Brian Ferneyhough

The most recent was my match against Daniel Bryan at Fastlane. He kicked my scar from my recent hernia surgery. That was painful. I needed to take a step back from training that next day! — Roman Reigns

I think that Hick was in love with Eleanor, and Eleanor was in love with Hick. I think it's very important to look at the letters that are in my book, because unlike some of the recent published letters, I have both the personal and the political. And their relationship is about ardor. It's about fun. And it's also about politics. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

Whatever happens to a baby contributes to the emotional and perceptual map of the world that its developing brain creates. As my colleague Bruce Perry explains it, the brain is formed in a "use-dependent manner."5 This is another way of describing neuroplasticity, the relatively recent discovery that neurons that "fire together, wire together." When a circuit fires repeatedly, it can become a default setting - the response most likely to occur. If you feel safe and loved, your brain becomes specialized in exploration, play, and cooperation; if you are frightened and unwanted, it specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment. As infants and — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Oh, I haven't reached any peak. I hit the bottom in the '60s. When a certain actress undertook the leading role in a recent play of mine, she referred to me as "that old derelict." Not to my face, but behind my back. — Tennessee Williams

Recent studies have considered the detection of a spaceship visiting our parish of the galaxy. In my opinion that last thought should bring a blush to every human cheek ... Fecklessness might be the main theme of the aliens' report on the new-found source of radio pollution ... that emanates from beings who have mastered a lot of physics, chemistry and biology and yet let their children starve-while all around their planet the energy of their mother star runs to waste in a desert of space. — Nigel Calder

It was an instant-fix afternoon quickie, and the Architect was a master of the kind. After I locked my front door after him, still radiant from recent orgasmic thrill, I had it all figured out: love yourself. Take care of yourself. Nurture yourself. Have your needs met; and everything will fit in its space. Eventually, if not earlier.
Yet, there was one thing I was unable to grasp:
How come men can do the nasty with their shoes on (how do they take their pants off?), yet they never fail to take off their handwatches? — Gina Wings

A recent study announced that 52 per cent of all teens who sign virginity pledges recant them within twelve months. If I'm on my game. — Tina Fey

My parents only played Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye. That's when New Kids came out, and we wanted to jam that. My mom was like, "Put that thing off and put my damn record on". So from old school to '90s to recent, it's just always been there. — Solange Knowles

Ian gave a sigh of exaggerated patience and glanced at Bones.
"Being related to her through you is a real trial."
This time, Bones didn't attempt to conceal his grin. "That's why you can pick your friends but not your family, cousin."
An emotion flashed across Ian's face before he covered it with his usual I'm-a-pain-in-the-ass-and-proud-of-it smirk. If it were anyone else, I'd swear it was childlike joy at hearing Bones call him "cousin". Recent events had revealed their long-lost human connection, making Ian both Bones's vampire sire and his only living blood relative.
That meant I was never getting rid of him. Then again, considering what my blood relatives had done, Ian was almost a saint by comparison. — Jeaniene Frost

I could no longer remember the way my mother's eyes looked before the slowing. Had they always been so red around the edges? Surely, those pockets of gray beneath her lower lashes were new. She still wasn't sleeping well, but perhaps what I was seeing was just age, a gradual shift that I'd failed to register. I sometimes felt the urge to study recent photographs of her in order to locate the exact point in time when she had come to look so weary. — Karen Thompson Walker

Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles. — Charles Darwin

Want me to come?" Tod ran his hand up my back, over my shirt. "If you keep her busy, I could convert the filing system from 'alphabetical' to 'most deserving of psychiatric help.'" He leaned closer, and I knew no one else would hear whatever came out of his mouth next. "I've been meaning to make some special notations in Nash's file anyway. Imagine the level of help he could receive if they knew the root of his recent academic decline was a deep-seated fear of the letter Q." I laughed. I couldn't help it. And though everyone else at the table looked curious, no one asked what Tod had said. They were finally starting to learn. "Thanks, but it's hard enough to take grief counseling seriously without you singing 'Living Dead Girl' at the top of your lungs behind the counselor's back. — Rachel Vincent

It's a bit scary to see my book come true: the recent (if minor) LA earthquakes, Hurricane Sandy, the Boston bomber, and so on - much of it stoppable, I think, and yet I, too, am also guilty of passivity. — Edan Lepucki

I have ignored my health for years, but recent developments have forced me to re-evaluate my priorities of faith and family. — Urban Meyer

I passed through this stage years ago on Venus, where I was so unfashionable that eventually I almost convinced myself I no longer cared that nobody wanted me; but recent events have reawakened my need for intimacy. — Charles Stross

All my life I have been the sort of person in whom people confide. And all my life I have been flattered by this role - grateful for the frisson of importance that comes with receiving important information. In recent years, however, I have noticed that my gratification is becoming diluted by a certain weary indignation. They tell me because they regard me as safe. All of them, they make their disclosures to me in the same spirit that they might tell a castrato or a priest - with a sense that I am so outside the loop, so remote from the doings of the great world, as to be defused of any possible threat. The number of secrets I receive is in inverse proportion to the number of secrets anyone expects me to have of my own. And this is the real source of my dismay. Being told secrets is not - never has been - a sign that I belong or that I matter. It is quite the opposite: confirmation of my irrelevance. — Zoe Heller

I can't believe that Hillary Clinton wants the world to think that whenever she gets into political trouble, she's going to have her husband come roaring about, breaking furniture, sucking up oxygen, spewing carbon dioxide. My impression is that she's strong enough to defend herself - she certainly showed that in the recent Democratic debate. But apparently she's not strong enough to control Mr. Bill ... and if that's the case, any sane voter would have to think twice before enabling this sort of circus act in the White House. — Joe Klein

Berlin is one of my favorite cities in the world. I feel like the energy is very youthful. It has such an important history, including its recent history of unification. — Mark Zuckerberg