Nell Quotes & Sayings

It was like giving a Jewish kid a coffee-table book about Auschwitz. — Nell Zink

I never take pictures. Skies are much larger in reminiscences and my friends are much better-looking. Photos crop reality into little squares; instead, I have very good binoculars. — Nell Zink

When the past is hard to explain, it's best to concentrate on the future. — Nell Zink

The biggest problem was convincing my father that organic food was worth eating. All he could think of was the nut loaf with yeast gravy that my mother made in the Seventies. — Nell Newman

The emotions triggered by fiction are very real. When Charles Dickens wrote about the death of Little Nell in the 1840s, people wept - and I'm sure that the death of characters in J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' series led to similar tears. — Paul Bloom

What is a poem, if not a toy mouse viewed from an angle that makes it appear to take over the world? Lee — Nell Zink

Drink to me! I just realized that I've slept with everyone at this table! ~Nell — Jennifer Crusie

Oh, god ... " I whimper. "I haven't done anything yet, baby," Colton growls. "I know," I pant. "I was just saying your name. — Jasinda Wilder

My dad hates doing PR, so I volunteered to do this for him. — Nell Newman

KATH: (Katherine) BRENT, daughter of Ed: Brent, dee'd., 300 acs. Northumberland Co., N.E. upon Quiough 421 Riv., S.E. upon land of Capt. Giles Brent. 9 Dec. 1662, p. 79, (554). (Capt. Gyles Brent, 4 May 1653, assigned to sd. Edm: Brent & by him given by will to sd. Kath.) — Nell Marion Nugent

NELL. Because that's what an employer is going to have doubts about with a lady as I needn't tell you, whether she's got the guts to push through to a closing situation. They think we're too nice. They think we listen to the buyer's doubts. They think we consider his needs and his feelings. — Caryl Churchill

We are all on the same road, some ahead of us and some behind. We do not always recognize ourselves as being among those who are struggling farther back, and misunderstand, scorn, and even persecute the ones who move ahead of us. History is littered with such as these: eccentrics, geniuses, idealists among those most noticeable. These change the world by force, though the change most often does not take place during their own time, they are so far ahead of it and therefore so rarely understood. — Nell Gavin

Charlie Rose is too much of a ladies' man for my liking. He thinks a lot of himself with his bluer-than-blue eyes and charming smile. I'm sure in his day he's enchanted more women than we have horses."
Nell gave the mare a quick hug and kissed her neck. "Sorry again, Georgia." With a lighthearted chuckle, she stepped through the gate.
And came face-to-face with Charlie. — Caroline Fyffe

(why exactly twenty-somethings are considered so vital to protest movements, I never figured out, seeing as how they never vote and have no money) — Nell Zink

When coffee prices fall below production costs, farmers are often forced off their land, and they lose their homes, everything. With fair trade, farmers get a fair price for their harvest with a guaranteed minimum, so they can invest in their crops. — Nell Newman

Whatever I was writing at the time, I knew there was no market for it and never would be, because there's never a market for true art, so my main concern was always to have a job that didn't require me to write or think. — Nell Zink

You can't hold it in forever," Colton said, apropos of nothing. "Yes, I can." I had to. "You'll go crazy. It'll come out, one way or another." "Better crazy than broken." I wasn't sure where that came from, hadn't thought it or meant to say it. "You're not broken. You're hurting. — Jasinda Wilder

If and when family planning is the responsibility of females, males are best kept under lock and key. — Nell Zink

If her father was Thunder, then George was Smoke - and how could you argue with someone who began to disappear as soon as you opened your mouth? — Nell Freudenberger

People lived their lives, carelessly dropping information as if it were trash. The writer moved behind them like a ragpicker. She cleaned and separated their garbage, culled and collected it. — Nell Freudenberger

What we should see is that there is none among us with nothing to give, and that giving is our purpose. — Nell Gavin

Clearly, Nell was going crazy. (Well, she certainly had the hair for it.) — Lesley Kagen

Her social position at Safeway was better than it was at home. — Nell Zink

Aunt Nell used to say it was not decent to have violet eyes, that they were a telltale sign of bad nature, like ginger hair or a hunchback. — Deanna Raybourn

Yahweh instructed, "Don't judge him. Pray for him. Don't criticize him. Honor him. Don't speak against him. Build him up with My Holy Word - the Bible. You were created to love him. Help him fulfill the purposes that I've destined him for. — J. Nell Brown

In America you make your plans and then they happen. — Nell Freudenberger

You thought that you were the permanent part of your own experience, the net that held it all together - until you discovered that there were many selves, dissolving into one another so quickly over time that the buildings and the trees and even the pavement turned out to have more substance than you did. — Nell Freudenberger

It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way. — Nell Freudenberger

I swear," Nell said, walking faster, "you're looking at a life of hamburger and no yelling." She held the dachshund closer, and it sighed this time and put its head on her arm, and she stopped to look down into
its eyes. "Hello," she said, and SugarPie stared back, pathetic and wide-eyed in the glow from the streetlight, her eyelashes fluttering like a Southern belle confronted by a Yankee. — Jennifer Crusie

mind Nell was writing: - ornamentation of neck, wrists, fingers - paint on face only — Lily King

I should have seen it coming." The words don't surprise me, but they piss me off. I pull away and glare down at her. "Don't you fucking dare, Nell Hawthorne. Don't you dare put this on yourself. You should never have to see shit like this coming." She backs away, stunned and afraid by the intensity I know is radiating off me. "Colton, I just meant he's always shown - " "Stop. Just stop right there. Granted, you should've never gotten involved with a douchetard like him, but that's no excuse for what he did. — Jasinda Wilder

As any bank robber can tell you (Nell would say), the best thing to do when running away is not to run. Just walk. Just stroll. A combination of ease and purposefulness is desirable. Then no one will notice you're running. In addition to which, don't carry heavy suitcases, or canvas bags full of money, or packsacks with body parts in them. Leave everything behind you except what's in your pockets. Lightest is best. — Margaret Atwood

The most seductive sin, I suppose, is passing judgment on others, and the next must be acting out of one's anger when one has the power to hurt the ones who wound us. — Nell Gavin

I stood transfixed, the silence ringing in my ears. From the field of wild grasses; cocksfoot, tufted hair, wild oat, tall fescue, reed canary and perennial rye, their subtle shades of green, ochre and pink softly patching and blending in rustling movement, suddenly rose a small flock of starlings that had been feeding quietly unseen among the tall waving stems, the swish of their glossy wings startlingly loud in the stillness of midday. Heat held me captive. — Nell Grey

My niche will be to support the environment through the growth of organic agriculture. — Nell Newman

It's a digital e-cigarette." "What's digital about it?" "You hold it in your fingers, like this." "I'm serious. Is it part of the Internet of things? Do they know when you're smoking it?" "I don't think so. I think they just mean it works on electricity. — Nell Zink

I thought Nell would go to bed then, but she followed me to the back of the house, where I was planning to make a cup of tea and think of where I could take them to find a decent tribe. — Lily King

Would you believe Nell told me off for kissing Sienna in the corridor?"

Felix couldn't fight his own grin. "Way I heard it, you were doing more than kissing. Wasn't there a half-unbuttoned shirt involved?"

Hawke's bad-tempered grown reverberated through Felix's bones. "I can't wait to have ammunition against you. I hope Dezi pounces on you in public. — Nalini Singh

Nell was not one for friends and had never hidden her distaste for most other humans, their neurotic compulsion for the acquisition of allies. — Kate Morton

I came across Nell like you would a Robert Mapplethorpe at a street art fair, gobsmacked that something so valuable would be lumped in with a bunch of other crap like that. She'd been slumped against the bathroom wall in Butterfields, a dorm we later took to calling Butterfingers, for the lacrosse team residents who manhandled girls made Gumby-legged by Popov vodka. Even with her mouth hanging open, her tongue dry and pebbled white from all the medically sanctioned stimulants, there was no question that she had a movie star face. "Hey," I said, my — Jessica Knoll

It's not okay," I tell her. This gets her attention; it's not what she was expecting. "You don't have to be okay." "What do you want from me?" Her voice is ragged, desperate. "I want you to let yourself be broken. Let yourself hurt." She shakes her head again. "I can't. If I let it out, it'll never stop." "Yes, it will. — Jasinda Wilder

My thoughts are free to roam back to the way she leaned her head on my arm for a split second, as if wishing she could let herself go, let herself lean farther. But she didn't, and I can't help but respect her for that, even I know her strength is false, propped up by the shaky girders of Old Man Jack. One day soon, those girders will collapse, and her world will crumble, and I know I have to be there when that happens. — Jasinda Wilder

Come awake, Tom. Fathers can willfully hurt their children. They can be addicts too weak to give up their vices, no matter the pain it causes. Mothers can turn you invisible with neglect. They can erase you with a denial, a refusal to see. Friends can deceive you. People lie. It is a cold, hard world. I do not blame Nell Hawkins for retreating from it into a madness of her own choosing. — Libba Bray

Her skirts, sleeves, collar, and hat saw to it that none of the young ruffians of the Leased Territories would have the opportunity to invade her body space with their eyes, and lest her distinctive face prove too much of a temptation, she wore a veil too ...
The veil offered Nell protection from unwanted scrutiny. Many New Atlantis career women also used the veil as a way of meeting the world on their own terms, ensuring that they were judged on their own merits and not on their appearance. It served a protective function as well, bouncing back the harmful rays of the sun and intercepting many deleterious nanosites that might otherwise slip unhindered into the nose and mouth. — Neal Stephenson

I'm a professional historian. I do my research. I have a PhD. What does my race have to do with it? — Nell Irvin Painter

Daddy was like a lot of people who kind of turn their noses up when you say the word 'organic.' — Nell Newman

Away with the joint-stools, remove the
court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save
me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let
the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.
Antony, and Potpan! — William Shakespeare

If a woman could win love with her body, the world would have no bastards. — Meredith Duran

You'll beat this. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will. You're a survivor."
"I don't want to survive it."
"I know that, too," Nell had said. "And it's fair enough. But sometimes we don't have a choice ... — Kate Morton

But we have to learn to be free. We have to, Nell. Doesn't mean happy all the time, or okay all the time. It's okay not to be okay. I told you that, but I'm relearning it myself. But not being okay doesn't mean you stop living. — Jasinda Wilder

Red sings like summer in the shadows, hot on my tongue ... — Nell Grey

This was the power of the story weaver, Nell realized. An ability to conjure color so that all else seemed to fade. — Kate Morton

Peggy had not forgotten the intellectual and social ambitions she had started life with only a decade before. Years so weary and routine laden, they seemed like a single year that had repeated itself. She wanted to be creative and self-reliant. — Nell Zink

You should really, like, dump her and date me instead,' May heard herself saying, all confidence. 'I'm not as irritating. I mean, I'm irritating, but I'm not as bad as she is. And you know me better. Wouldn't that be funny? I mean, we've already hooked up, so we're good.'

We broke up,' Pete said quickly. His voice was so bright that May could hear the smile coming through. For a moment she was confused.

Who, you and me?'

No. Nell and i.'

Oh . . .'

The meter in her brain clicked once or twice, signaling May that she'd probably said enough.

I have to go,' she said suddenly. 'Okay? I think that's great. Cool. Okay. Gotta go now. Hey, Pete, I love you! — Maureen Johnson

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing. — Oscar Wilde

Let us live without hate among those who hate — Patricia Nell Warren

You done a number on him, Colt. He needs a doctor, or he ain't gonna make it." "He tried to rape her, Split. Then he punched her." "To be fair," Nell puts in, "he only punched me after I put a knife to his throat." Split coughs a laugh. "You what? Girl, you crazy. — Jasinda Wilder

For so long I'd felt that what I'd been trained to do in academic writing was to press my nose to the ground, and here was Nell Stone with her head raised and swiveling in all directions. It was exhilarating and infuriating — Lily King

Why shouldn't loving puppets be a revolutionary act, in a world where so many people love drone warfare? — Nell Zink

Before science, before the eighteenth century, religion answered the questions, and so in the nineteenth century for instance there was a real jostling between science and religion over the truth and this is why Darwin was so controversial. — Nell Irvin Painter

As I was to learn, reproductive urges will serve as an alibi for just about anything. — Nell Zink

When I was at home, I always cooked, and I usually cook over all the holidays. I always used organic. — Nell Newman

then decided maybe something was wrong with Sundays. He tried Saturday and saw about two thousand — Nell Zink

She had read enough lives of the poetesses to know all about inpatient psychiatric care. — Nell Zink

Rich means you have to stay there to maintain it. — Nell Carter

It's become more readily apparent that we need to be growing our own food and growing more things organically. — Nell Newman

At 6:15 she was standing on her front porch watering gardenias and watching another line of thunderstorms split and go around her. The same thing happened almost every day. Some days they came so close all she could smell was the rain. The wind whipped up dust from the fields until it drove like buckshot into the shuddering mesquites, and Clara Nell started to pray. 'Jesus,' she whispered. 'Jesus, Jesus....' But the only thing that came out of the sky was her topsoil. Every day the wind took a little more, and it hadn't rained in almost a year. — Andrew Geyer

Nell Zink is a writer of extraordinary talent and range. Her work insistently raises the possibility that the world is larger and stranger than the world you think you know. — Jonathan Franzen

Nell's husband has short-man syndrome. Eddie is one of those deadly dull people who is so upbeat that I suspect he would subconsciously like to go through the neighborhood, house by house, with a machine gun. He seems oblivious to the effect that his long, rambling monologues have on people - he doesn't notice the blank faces, the fingers flexing like those of people buried alive, the ocular tics. You could write down his words verbatim, show them to him, and he'd probably say, 'I know someone just like that!' Then he'd tell you about that person until your teeth hurt. His hostage-taking is passive-aggressive. — Anne Lamott

I said to my teacher, 'I can't be a singer because I'm not pretty enough, and I'm fat.' And she looked at me and said, 'Tell that to Nell Carter, babe.' That changed my life forever! — Beth Ditto

It" is the idea of him or her that resides in us--inspired by the "Something" in them, as Pope has it, "That gives us back the Image of our Mind." Although the perception of It must be excited by some extraordinary perturbation in the looks and personality of the adored, the aura that It broadcasts arises not merely from the singularity of an original, as Walter Benjamin supposed, but also from the fabulous success of its reproducibility in the imaginations of many others, charmed exponentially by the number of its copies. The one-of-kind item must become a type, a replicable role-icon of itself--from "a Charles Hart" or "a Nell Gwyn" to "a Mary Pickford" or "a Douglas Fairbanks"--in order to unleash the Pygmalion effect in the hearts and minds of the fans, making the idea of him or her theirs--as much or more than anything else they might call their own. — Joseph Roach

Dan moans behind me, reminding her of the problem. She straightens in fear at the sound of his voice, peers over my shoulder at the chunk of bloody beef that is Dan Sikorsky. She looks slowly from him to me. "What did you do?" I duck my head, embarrassed. "I sort of lost my temper. — Jasinda Wilder

I've had diseases that lasted longer than my marriages. — Nell Carter

From the passenger seat the wallcreeper said, "Twee. — Nell Zink

Research for fiction is a funny thing: you go looking for one piece of information, and find something altogether different. — Nell Freudenberger

To grow a tomato or a pepper and prepare a meal from your labor and care is primordially satisfying. — Nell Newman

As a speller he was adrift in a no-man's-land between phonetic and dyslexic. — Nell Zink

...the whole universe is contagious if you look at it long enough. Just opening your eyes puts you in front of a mirror, psychologically speaking. Garbage in, garbage out. Or rather, garbage goes in, but you never get rid of it. It just lies there turning to dust and slowly wafting a thin layer of grime on to every other object in your brain. Scraping the gunk off is not only a major challenge, but the chief burden of human existence. that's why I keep things so clean. Otherwise I would see little flecks of [ ] shit everywhere I looked ... — Nell Zink

You want money; I know that much. But what of power, Nell?" The word sent a frisson down her spine. Power: what he was exercising right now, holding her riveted with only his words and the light press of his wicked fingers. What a terrible power, too - what a terrible context in which to discover such a power existed. Better for her sake if he'd exercised the clumsier forms: raw strength, muscle, a shout. Brute force she knew well enough. — Meredith Duran

People wanted to get me published, and my early work was so weird that they weren't getting anywhere. I thought, okay, I'll do something that's just a tad more normal. — Nell Zink

Let ... it ... go," he whispers, his voice a fierce, harsh sound in my hair. "No. No!" The last word is screamed. "You have to. You can't bleed it out. You can't keep pretending, drinking it down. — Jasinda Wilder

His smile faded a little, growing softer, more intimate, like the look he'd showed her in bed this morning. 'You haven't learned yet when to lie.' Slowly, as if the words were being dragged from him, he added: 'I confess, Nell, I hope you never learn.' She found herself staring at him. Unsteadying thought: there was something hot in his eyes that wasn't purely want. It was too tender, too ... affectionate. — Meredith Duran

Extinction was a difficult concept for a 10-year-old. — Nell Newman

You're a cis-het dude-bro on strike for better conditions. — Nell Zink

You can't Nell. Just... hold my hand. I love you" - Kyle — Jasinda Wilder

The library, like the thrift shop, specialised in the leavings of the elderly dead. — Nell Zink

I have known many people who were seduced as children by same-sex partners and then spent their teen years being gay, and then found their way back to heterosexuality as adults. — Nell Zink

nice day, i said. and i put one of the raspberries in my mouth. is it? i looked up at the sky. the sun is there, i said, only it's hid by a cloud. you ever see the bad in life? he asked. i'll have time to think about that, i said, when i'm dead. — Nell Leyshon

And the black box in her arms whimpered itself to sleep with longing to be a normal person who is chosen, not a special person who is discovered. To be the kind of duck who gets included by wild swans — Nell Zink

Grigsby's marvelous exploration-a deep, wide, and beautiful inquiry into Sojourner Truth's use of technology-features more of her photographs than have ever been collected before. Among its many insights, I especially relished the analysis of Truth's illiteracy. Enduring Truths is art history with a wide-ranging concept of history left in. A terrific book, and one we've needed for a long time. — Nell Irvin Painter

When I was seventeen I found a man, or maybe he found me. Away from home for the first time, out of reach of my father's archaic restrictions and my mother's culinary insistence, I cut off my hair, dropped my Christian name, wore black and toyed with anorexia, passing incognito among the city workers, just another ant in that vast heap. — Nell Grey

Instead of thinking that's a nice tune, you start thinking is it the right pace, is it the right tempo? That is the death nell for artists. — Alison Moyet

She would see that in England, for reasons unknown, a woman can simultaneously be cute as a bug's ear, a serious rose gardener, and a nymphomaniac. — Nell Zink

Making art for me is not fun in the sense of la, la, la, la, but it's something that I find very absorbing and very satisfying. — Nell Irvin Painter

I did answer. I said a little. I'm afraid of what you can do. I mean, I feel safe with you, though. I know you'd never hurt me." I take her face in my hands. It's too familiar, too affectionate, too soon. I can't help it, though. "Just the opposite. I will protect you. From others and from yourself. Always." "Why?" Barely audible. "Because I want to. Because ... " I struggle to find the right words. "Because you deserve it, and you need it." "No, I don't. — Jasinda Wilder

Why would some people attracted to what is unfamiliar and others tat what they knew. She thought It may to do how comfortable you are in your own life, how well you though you belong — Nell Freudenberger

I think women often have problems with self-belief, which sounds a bit boring, but they do - and I think when women are bringing up children, it can be chronic, because you have all these other calls on your time. — Nell Leyshon

So the years passed and everyone grew old and Nell's husband died and Hilda grew to be a large, angry sort of woman very high up in local government. When Nell was eighty-four Hilda retired and they went to live at a sea-side place where Hilda had had meaningful holidays during the menopause with a woman called Audrey, now dead. — Jane Gardam

As he mused on the possibilities he became aware of the odor of cigarette smoke. And the sound of muted sobs ... As she tried to stifle her anguish, what came out of her was utterly mournful, the saddest thing Luke had ever heard. He wanted to scramble out of the tree house, climb back into his room, and shut the window. But he was afraid to move. She would hear him.
So he just sat there, hearing the agony of thousands of failed days bleed out of Nell. He put his hands over his ears and closed his eyes. he didn't want to hear her sobbing, didn't want to acknowledge she felt pain - nor that he knew she'd lived through more pain than anyone else he'd ever known. That maybe she had sent Norah and Kieran away because she knew Eleanor's home had to be happier than hers. He didn't want to acknowledge that. He wouldn't be able to hate her then. — Susan Meissner

I'm enough of an anarchist aesthetically, when it comes to art - I want people to be reading my stuff voluntarily. They should be doing it because they want to. — Nell Zink