Never Back Off Quotes & Sayings

And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing.
Aaron's Noise roars up in red and black.
The current takes us on.
"I'm sorry!" I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can't barely breathe. "I'm sorry, Manchee!"
"Todd?" he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. "Todd?"
"Manchee!" I scream.
Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog.
"MANCHEE!"
"Todd?"
And Aaron wrenches his arms and there's a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.
And the pain is too much it's too much it's too much and my hands are on my head and I'm rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that's inside of me. — Patrick Ness

Silas knew words could have power behind them. Usually it was just a sort of bad luck. He also knew, very early on, that you could never tell when that bad luck would jump up to claim its due, so it was best to be careful. Quiet was safer. He wished his parents had been quieter when they were together. Who knew what might happen when you said something awful to someone else? It was hard to take some words back. Some words stuck and you couldn't shake them off. Silence was better than those kinds of words. Silas had learned that lesson the hard way. — Ari Berk

I remember once when I was young, and I was coming back from some place, a movie or something.
I was on the subway and there was a girl sitting across from me and she was wearing this dress that was bottoned queer up right to here, she was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
And I was shy then, so when she would look at me I would look away, then afterwards when I would look back she would look away.
Then I got to where I was gonna get off, and got off, the doors closed, and as the train was pulling away she looked right at me and gave me the most incredible smile. It was awful, I wanted to tear the doors open.
And I went back every night, same time, for two weeks, but she never showed up.
That was 30 years ago and I don't think that theres a day that goes by that I don't think about her, I don't want that to happen again.
Just one dance ?. — Jack Engelhard

If anything happens, I'm going to pin you to my back and never let you off."
I love you too."
- Saphira and Eragon — Christopher Paolini

I'm the one who will always watch over you. Always be there to fuck you back to your senses when you need it, the one who will never let you die. I pull my shirt over my head and kick off my shoes. "What more could a woman ask? — Karen Marie Moning

I wanted to kill someone and I wanted to die and I wanted to run as far and as fast as I could because she was never coming back. She had fallen off the face of the earth and she was never coming back. — Melissa Kantor

So once upon a time Ed met a girl who was the most optimistic person he had even know. A girl who wore flip-flops in the hope of spring. She seemed to bounce through life like Tigger; the things that would have felled most people didn't seem to touch her. Or if she did fall, she bounced right back. She fell again, plastered on a smile, dusted herself off, and kept going. He never could work out whether it was the single most heroic thing or the most idiotic thing he'd ever seen. — Jojo Moyes

I've never seen anyone sleep with their head hanging off the back of a wooden chair before - was the couch not comfortable enough for you? — Tabitha Suzuma

I was a knight," Andrea said. "I'm not just going to start shooting every dickhead who mouths off to me."
"Just making sure."
"Besides, if I shot him, I'd do it so nobody could trace it back to me. I'd shoot him somewhere remote, his head would explode like a melon, and they would never find his body. He would just vanish. — Ilona Andrews

The Armadillo A big fiesta was announced on Lake Titicaca, and the armadillo, who was a very superior creature, wanted to dazzle everybody. Long beforehand, he set to weaving a cloak of such elegance that it would knock all eyes out. The fox noticed him at work. "Are you in a bad mood?" "Don't distract me. I'm busy." "What's that for?" The armadillo explained. "Ah," said the fox, savoring the words, "for the fiesta tonight?" "What do you mean, tonight?" The armadillo's heart sank. He had never been more sure of his time calculations. "And me with my cloak only half finished!" While the fox took off with a smothered laugh, the armadillo finished the cloak in a hurry. As time was flying, he had to use coarser threads, and the weave ended up too big. For this reason the armadillo's shell is tight-warped around the neck and very open at the back. (174) — Eduardo Galeano

Off the floor, I'm really laid back: like, nothing really fazes me too much. But on the floor, I do get emotional and a little carried away. However, I started playing when I was 13 to have fun with my teammates, and that never stopped. I enjoy traveling and having fun in the locker room with the guys. Life is too short to be miserable. — Dirk Nowitzki

He felt a strange urge, right then, just to put his head down and walk past, off into the night and never look back. Then he wouldn't have to be the Bloody-Nine again... He could've gone far away, and started new, and been whoever he wanted. But he'd tried that once already, and it had done him no good. The past was always right behind him, breathing on his neck. It was time to turn around and face it. — Joe Abercrombie

I remember a biology lab in which we observed a spear-headed water worm. Like a starfish, it could grow back anything we razored off of it, even to the point of generating multiple versions of itself. I saw myself in that gliding shape. Arrow-shaped, it never arrived where it wanted to go. But it knew, when cut, to grow. — Kenji Yoshino

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I begin just where I left off. — Willa Cather

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always wandering off or running away," he said. "But you're a lot more
interesting when you're just being yourself you know. When you're actually here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma said coldly. "Where else would I be?"

"You know what I mean," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "It's like you're so busy trying not to act like your family that you've never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing."

"Well what about you?" she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words.
"You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can't have it both wars."

"Well neither can you," he said. " You can't keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them. — Jennifer E. Smith

Logen pulled the knife out of his boot and rammed the blade into the side of the giant's neck. He looked surprised, for just a moment, then blood dribbled from his mouth and down his chin. He let go of Logen's shirt, stumbled back, spun slowly round, bounced off one of the stones and crashed on his face. Seemed that Logen's father had been right. You can never have too many knives. — Joe Abercrombie

The reprieve doesn't last long though; within a couple of hours the waves are back up to 70 feet. A 70 foot wave has an angled face of well over 100 feet. The Seastate has reached levels that no one on the boat, and few people one earth, have ever seen. When the Contship Holland finally limped into port several days later, one of the officers stepped off and swore he would never set foot on another ship again. — Sebastian Junger

The three of us do not go out very often as the three of us. I think Daniel is perfect for Jed, which is the highest compliment I can give. But my friendship isn't with him, and Jed understands that. When we hit the road, we hit it together alone.
We get to the bridge, out undestined destination. Even though there's no sign, no arrow, Jed turns at the last minute and parks us in a verge right before the bridge leaves the ground.
The trunk pops open, and Jed runs round back to retrieve a bag of oranges and a sweatshirt that fits me better.
Shall we make like lizards and leap? he asks.
I never felt the urge to jump off a bridge, but there are times I have wanted to jump out of my life, out of my skin.
Would you stroll me down the promenade instead? I ask back.
Most certainly, my splendid.
There is no word for our kind of friendship. Two people tho don't see each other a lot, but can make each other effortlessly happy. — David Levithan

Now, of course, having failed in every attempt to subdue the Glades by frontal attack, we are slowly killing it off by tapping the River of Grass. In the questionable name of progress, the state in its vast wisdom lets every two-bit developer divert the flow into drag-lined canals that give him 'waterfront' lots to sell. As far north as Corkscrew Swamp, virgin stands of ancient bald cypress are dying. All the area north of Copeland had been logged out, and will never come back. As the glades dry, the big fires come with increasing frequency. The ecology is changing with egret colonies dwindling, mullet getting scarce, mangrove dying of new diseases born of dryness. — John D. MacDonald

The Church has never been a scapegoat more than it is today. But one must see the symbolic value of this: whatever the Church may have lost by its compromises with the world, its enemies now give back by obliging it to play the same role as Christ. This is its true vocation. And now that it has been reaffirmed, it will enable the Church to shake off the indolence and decadence of the age that is now drawing to a close. MSB — Rene Girard

Israel was always on my bucket list, it was always one of those places that you check off and move onto the next place, but I'm never going to check Israel off my list. It's a place I'm always going to want to come back to. — Lana Parrilla

I still like boiled potatoes with the skins on," he said, "and I do not want a man standing in back of my chair, laughing up his sleeve at me while I am taking the potatoes' jackets off." Of pleasure and material things he was wary. "I have never known what to do with money after my expenses were paid. I can't squander it on myself without hurting myself," he said, "and nobody wants to do that. — David Halberstam

She said the secret to long life is to never stop moving. The moment you stop, you're dying." He poked me in the arm and sat back. "That's your lesson today. Expect a test tomorrow." I giggled a little. "Always teaching?" "I don't have to today," he said. "That was just a bonus." He polished off the last of the apple pie, licking the spoon like a lollipop. "Ready?" "For what?" "You'll see. — C.L.Stone

It seems like he's keeping my foot within his grasp for longer than necessary when I see his eyes wander up my legs again. I tingle in every spot his gaze touches.
His voice sends shivers up my spine when he asks, "Have you ever been fucked, Eve?"
My eyelids flutter and I let out a small surprised gasp at his question, breath gushing from my lips. I'm not exactly a virgin, not too far off though, and I can safely say that I have never been fucked in the way that Phoenix is insinuating. Most of the sex I've had has been the fantasy kind. Our eyes lock and he moves his hand from the heel of my foot up along the back of my leg, massaging my shin.
I actually moan when his fingers press in, releasing the tension from a knotted muscle. His mouth opens as he watches me.
"I don't think that's a very appropriate question to ask of a friend," I finally manage to croak out.
He smiles darkly. "I told you I was bad news. — Raine Anthony

Not long before, I had stayed up late with my mother and watched Citizen Kane, and I was very taken with the idea that a person might notice in passing some bewitching stranger and remember her for the rest of his life. Someday I too might be like the old man in the movie, leaning back in my chair with a far-off look in my eyes, and saying: You know, that was sixty years ago, and I never saw that girl with the red hair again, but you know what? Not a month has gone by in all that time when I haven't thought of her. — Donna Tartt

All your life you've been hurt, and it's the things you loved the most that hurt the most when you lost them. Everywhere you turn, even when the eyes that look back at you are just like yours, you know you're the stranger. You can't tell others how you really feel, because you know they'll laugh. And when you sleep, you can feel the hole inside you, because you know that no matter what you do, you'll always be different, and this world hates different. So you close your eyes, and you wonder if it would really be all that bad if you never woke up. Maybe in the next world, you'll find a way to fill the hole. But eventually, you open your eyes, and it's a new day, and you brush yourself off and try to make the best of things before you lie down to sleep and think it all over again. — Aaron Burdett

I thought I was going to die there, alone. I thought I would never see you again." He seemed to shake off the memory and leaned back on an elbow, gazing at her with a lop-sided smile on his face.
"The Shadrin left some scars that aren't healed yet. But I would have to take off my pants to show them to you."
"Really?" Kahlan gave a throaty laugh. "I think I better have a look ... to see if everything is all right. — Terry Goodkind

Kingsley turned his attention back to her.
"Why do you have your clothes on?"
"Was I supposed to take them off?"
"I've never heard a stupider question in my life. — Tiffany Reisz

IN the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was gone for spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out, and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was a- standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull times for her. So she took and dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn't the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock. I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was. — Mark Twain

Every time you get angry with yourself for where you are in your process of growth, it's the equivalent of chopping off the head of the rose because it hasn't bloomed yet. Now you have to go through that part of the process again. Anger will set you back every time and slow down your growth. However, self-compassion and self-encouragement are like water and sunshine; they help the growth process happen faster and easier. It's up to you how you want to proceed, but if you can break the habit of getting angry with yourself and replace it with some compassion and encouragement, then you will bloom like you have never bloomed before. — Emily Maroutian

If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing - that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. She could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination.
If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer and it can never be taken back.
So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world? — Neal Shusterman

When we came back to the sun deck, the party talk had swung around to the bones found at the end of the street. Carey was saying the police had been to ask her if there was anything she remembered that might help to identify the bones as her husband's. "I told them," she was saying, "that that rascal had run off and left me, not been killed. For weeks after he didn't come back, I thought he might walk back through that door with those diapers. You know," she told Aubrey parenthetically, "he left to get diapers for the baby and never came back." Aubrey nodded, perhaps to indicate understanding or perhaps because he'd already heard this bit of Lawrenceton folklore. — Charlaine Harris

It's not too late," he says. "Zahra, I - "
"Sh." I lay a finger across his lips. "Don't say it. You will marry Caspida, and you will learn to love each other. You will live a happy life, long after my lamp has passed to new hands."
"I won't make my third wish," he says. "That's the answer! If I don't make the wish, you can stay here in the palace for as long as you want. You'll never have to go back to your lamp. We can fight off anyone who tries to take you from me. — Jessica Khoury

The song that was playing above us was You And Me by Lifehouse and he pressed his face into my hair and softly sang the words to me.
What day is it? And in what month?
This clock never seemed so alive
I can't keep up I can't back down
I'm losing so much time
'Cause it's you and me, and all of the people
with nothing to do, nothing to lose
And it's you and me, and all of the people
And I don't know why I can't keep my eyes off of you
I could have died ... or cried ... or sighed. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do more. — Shelly Crane

There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione's arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.
"Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. "OI! There's a war going on here!"
Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.
"I know, mate," said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the back of the head with a Bludger, "so it's now or never, isn't it?"
"Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?" Harry shouted. "D'you think you could just
just hold it in, until we've got the diadem?"
"Yeah
right
sorry
" said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face. — J.K. Rowling

My fingers draw up her back and tangle into her hair. "They'll never separate us."
"Never," she repeats.
Our lips crush together, our bodies pressed tight. An inferno of lips and hands and movements that continues to grow in heat. The blanket falls away as Rachel slides her legs so that she straddles me. On the verge of burning up completely, I groan and cling to her small frame. Her hands drift under my shirt, leaving a singeing trail.
We've become a wildfire. Almost unstoppable. I kiss her neck and the beautiful sounds escaping her mouth encourage me further. My hands skim under her shirt, up her back, linger for seconds near her bra, and I gently nip her ear when I feel lace.
Images pour into my mind of what she'd look like with her shirt off, then her jeans. My fist traps strands of her hair. "I want you, Rachel."
And because I do, I kiss her fully on the mouth - nothing left to the imagination. Every fantasy becomes a reality with that one embrace. — Katie McGarry

Mark Waugh, the most fluent and aesthetically pleasing batsman of his generation but also one of the most frustrating to watch. Often, when he appeared to be a class above the rest and to have the bowling at his mercy, he would play a lazy shot to what appeared, more often than not, an innocuous delivery. And just like that his innings would be over. To make matters worse, he didn't seem to care; he would nonchalantly wander off the field. No shaking of the head or staring back at the pitch to apportion blame. His fans had to learn to accept 30s and 40s instead of centuries and 150s. His concentration, some would say his interest, never seemed to be there in the Test arena. Despite playing some match-winning Test innings, Waugh was never quite able to shake the 'lackadaisical' tag. — Sean Ehlers

Rory: Amy. I'm gonna need a little help here.
Amy: Just stop it!
Rory: Just think it through, this will work. This will kill the Angels.
Amy: it will kill you too.
Rory: Will it? River said that this place would be erased from time, never existed. If this place never existed what did I fall off?
Amy: You think you'll just come back to life.
Rory: When don't I?
Amy: Rory -
Rory: Anyway, what else is there? Dying of old age downstairs, never seeing you again? Amy, please. If you love me, then trust me and push.
Amy: I can't.
Rory: You have to!
Amy: Could you? Could you if it was me? Could you do it?
Rory: To save you, I could do anything.
Amy: Prove it.
Rory: But I can't take you too.
Amy: You said we'd come back to life. Money-where-your-mouth-is time.
Rory: Amy, but -
Amy: Shut. Up. Together. Or not at all

-Doctor Who — Steven Moffat

F
off. It's not like that. Her and me. I'm just saying
"
"That you hadn't left her for good. I never said you had. You just wanted to withdraw long enough to get used to the idea that you'd lost your chance. Lick your wounds, suck it in, and bounce back to being her friend and mentor, and be happy with just that."
"I am happy with just that. It's all I want."
"Is it? Or is that what you're telling yourself because you think you never had a shot in the first place? You'd better wake up fast, Jack, or she's going to settle for Quinn, and let me tell you, it's settling, because it's not Quinn she
— Kelley Armstrong

As you get older, the heart shed its leaves like a tree. You cannot hold out against certain winds. Each day tears away a few more leaves; and then there are the storms that break off several branches at one go. And while nature's greenery grows back again in the spring, that of the heart never grows back. — Gustave Flaubert

She was the kind
To tell it like it is
To kiss and tell
To kiss and kill
To kill with kindness

She was the kind
To get things through her thick skull
To work her fingers to the bone
To work on her back
To never take it lying down

She was the kind
To lay down the law
To get down on her knees
To get up on her feet
To give an inch and take a mile

She was the kind
To stand up for herself
To sit down strike
To go to the wall
To take it to the limit

She was the kind
To take it too far
To drop off the face of the earth
To face the music
To hit rock bottom

She was the kind
To get back on that horse and ride it
To get up on her high horse
To get down to business
To turn the world upside down — Heid E. Erdrich

Dylan stopped at an intersection and gave Chris a long look. 'Not you. You are original. Unique.'
'That good or bad?'
'Oh definitely good. Very, very good. I'd never go back to an off-the-rack lover again.'
'Naw, you prob'ly ordered your lays from the Williams-Sonoma catalog.'
'Well, I'm done shopping now.' — Kim Fielding

He climbed up behind Hazel. Arion took off across the water, the nymphs screaming behind them, and Narcissus shouting, "Bring me back! Bring me back!" As Arion raced towards the Argo II, Leo remembered what Nemesis had said about Echo and Narcissus: Perhaps they'll teach you a lesson. Leo had thought she'd meant Narcissus, but now he wondered if the real lesson for him was Echo
invisible to her brethren, cursed to love someone who didn't care for her. A seventh wheel. He tried to shake that thought. He clung to the sheet of bronze like a shield. He was determined never to forget Echo's face. She deserved at least one person who saw her and knew how good she was. Leo closed his eyes, but the memory of her smile was already fading. — Rick Riordan

George thought about it, and asked, "What are, exactly?"
"What am I?"
"Yes. You're not a performer, or just a performer. I've seen vaudevillians do a lot of things before, but I've never seen one pull reflections off glass. So what are you?"
Silenus smirked, sat back in his seat, and pulled his hat down over his eyes. "You're wrong, kid. I am just a performer. I'm just putting on a show you haven't seen before. — Robert Jackson Bennett

The problem with being an alpha is that you can never make the first move.
Makes you feel like you're taking advantage of your position. You have to wait until
the other person decides they want in."
Jim set the basket on the coffee table and crouched by me.
"And sometimes it seems like that person likes you, and you try to test the waters,
so you try to tell her how you feel, that she matters and that you want to be with her
and you're concerned about her safety. And every time you do that, she waves her
arms around and accuses you of being a controlling alpha asshole. So you back off
and hope you didn't completely fuck it up."
He was close, too close. I just stared at him. What was happening ... "Why are
you telling me this?"
His voice was low and smooth. "That time when I told you it didn't matter what
your mother thought about your looks ... "
"Aha ... "
"I meant it," he said. "Because I think you're beautiful. — Ilona Andrews

Well, no. I was getting into trouble messing around with it for roles. So one night I went home, cut it down with a pair of scissors and then got in the bath and shaved it all off. I've never looked back. — Richard O'Brien

I wasn't never gonna run off again, no matter how bad things got. But I wasn't gonna be too scared to love the folks that took the time to love me back, and I sure wasn't gonna chase them that don't. And I was gonna spend the rest of my life asking questions and looking behind everything that happened, so I could find the gifts I got tucked inside me. — Susan Crandall

Old Dean's gone, I thought, and out loud I said, "He'll be all right."
And off we went to the sad and disinclined concert for which I had no stomach and all the time I was thinking of Dean and how he got back on the train and rode over three thousand miles over that awful land and never knew why he had come anyway, except to see me. — Jack Kerouac

I crumple on my bed. For a second, i believed that what i wanted more than anything in the world had come true. For a second, i believed that my dad was back. but he isn't. He's gone again. he's really truly gone and i know it. i know i'll never see him again no matter how much i want to.
The candle in me has blown out and i'm afraid, really, really afraid, because my biggest fear is true. i have to live my life without my dad, my running partner, the guy who taught me amnesty and sang john lennon songs really off key. — Carrie Jones

The more you walk in relationship with the Lord, the more you learn to trust him. I'm learning not to focus so much on the issues I think are so big right now-our bus has broken down, or someone said something that frustrated me. I'm learning to slowly let things roll off my back, to say, 'Hey, God knew about this before it happened and He's got a way out or a plan better than mine.' I've learned to stop freaking out and just trust that God knows what he's doing. He's not going to leave me in a bad place because He never has before. — Francesca Battistelli

Even they would think you a monster were you to
orchestrate a divorce right after my confinement."
"How long do you recommend I wait, then?"
"A long time. I know what happens when a divorce is granted:
The woman never gets anything. And I will not be parted from my child."
"So you will contest the divorce?"
"To my last penny. And then I'll borrow from Fitz and Millie."
"So we'll be married 'til the end of time?"
"The sooner you accept it, the sooner we are all better off."
His ancestors would have appreciated her hauteur: a fit wife for a de Montfort. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must have enough rest."
He gazed at her retreating back. Foolish woman, did she not realize that he'd already accepted it from the moment he'd said "I do"? — Sherry Thomas

My mom's coming home soon," I said. "We should go to your place."
Patch ran a hand across the shadow of stubble along his jaw. "I have rules about who I take there." I was getting really tired of that answer.
"If you showed me, you'd have to kill me?" I guessed, fighting the urge to feel irritated. "Once I'm inside, I can never leave?"
Patch studied me a moment. Then he reached into his pocket, twisted a key off his key chain, and slipped it into the front pocket of my pajama top. "Once you've gone inside, you have to keep coming back. — Becca Fitzpatrick

See! I went a little farther, and I saw one who hung bleeding upon a tree, and the very sight of Him made my burden fall off my back (for I had groaned under a very heavy burden, but then it fell off). It was a strange thing to see, and I have never seen anything like it before. And while I stood looking up at the one hanging on the cross, three Shining Ones came to me. One of them testified that
my sins were forgiven; another stripped me of my rags and gave me this embroidered coat that you see; and the third gave me the mark that you see on my forehead and gave me this sealed scroll. And with that he plucked it out of his coat. — John Bunyan

I was heavily into AD&D in my teens (late 1970s-early 1980s) but fell off the RPG habit in the mid-80s and have never gone back to it; my lifestyle today isn't very compatible with having a regular gaming group (too much travel). — Charles Stross

I want to save her because ... " Even though he was speaking to her, he never took his eyes off mine. "Because I'm a better man with her. Because I can't imagine going back to being who I was before I met her. Because I'm afraid ... that I could be that monster again without her here loving me. — Shelly Crane

My brothers were still catching sparrows when my cousin told me to give him the baby bird. I didn't want to, but I took the squirming bird out of my pocket anyway. I wanted another look at it. It was so small. I don't think it could fly yet. My cousin plucked the bird from my palm and went off with it. I should never have taken it out of my pocket. When he returned, the birds were all burnt to a crisp. Their bones were popping out of their skin. I couldn't even tell which of the birds was mine. I looked at their burnt feathers and blackened skin and burst into tears. I cried for him to give me back my bird, but it was too late. My yelling must have irritate him, because he grabbed the smallest one and shoved it in my face, and said, 'Here it is.' When I took that charred baby bird from him, I felt the world crash down on me. It was the first time I had ever held something that had died. I love you as much as the sorrow I felt. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Archbishop. Why do I never read the lesson?"
"I beg your pardon, ma'am?"
"In church. Everybody else gets to read and one never does. It's not laid down, is it? It's not off-limits?"
"Not that I'm aware, ma'am."
"Good. Well in that case I'm going to start. Leviticus, here I come. Goodnight."
The archbishop shook his head and went back to Strictly Come Dancing. — Alan Bennett

My mother was asked to be a model when she was younger, but my father had not let her, so she was quite keen on me becoming a model. I just went off without telling my dad. I took off to Paris and never came back, but when I became a success and started making money, he was very proud of me. — Jerry Hall

Grief reunites you with what you've lost. It's a merging; you go with the loved thing or person that's going away. You follow it a far as you can go.
But finally,the grief goes away and you phase back into the world. Without him.
And you can accept that. What the hell choice is there? You cry, you continue to cry, because you don't ever completely come back from where you went with him
a fragment broken off your pulsing, pumping heart is there still. A cut that never heals.
And if, when it happens to you over and over again in life, too much of your heart does finally go away, then you can't feel grief any more. And then you yourself are ready to die. You'll walk up the inclined ladder and someone else will remain behind grieving for you. — Philip K. Dick

He rolled her over, rising above her, cupping her cheek. "I wasn't lying, Loree. I've always heard the music in my heart ... but I lost the ability to do that when I went to prison. It was like the music just shriveled up and died. I thought I'd never hear it again. How could I play the violin if I couldn't hear the music? Then lately, I started going crazy because I'd hear snatches of music - when you'd look at me or smile at me. But I couldn't grab onto it, I couldn't hold it. Then last night, you told me that you loved me and I heard the music, so sweet, so soft. It scared me to hear it so clearly after I hadn't for so long.
"Tonight, I hurt you - again. I was going to let you go, Loree. I was gonna take you back to Austin. But I heard my heart break ... and I knew that's all I'd hear for the rest of my life. Don't leave me, Sugar."
Joy filled her and she brushed the locks of hair back off his brow. "I won't."
-Austin and Loree — Lorraine Heath

Never coming back here, she thought.
With a groan, she levered herself into a sitting position and discovered a painful crick in her neck. Never ever. She launched herself off the bed and limped over to the door and put here eye to the viewer, was treated to a fish-eye view of a small, dapper, well-dressed man holding a bunch of white roses.
Okay. Man with flowers. Carey looked around the room. The windows opened on short tethers so guests couldn't throw furniture or each other out into the street, and she was too high to jump anyway. She looked around the room again, looking for possible weapons. There was a rickety-looking chair by the desk in the corner, but it would probably fall to bits even before she hit anyone with it. She looked through the viewer. The little man knocked again. Not urgently, not in an official we-have-come-to-take-you-to-the-gulag kind of way, but in the manner of a gentleman visiting his lady friend with a nice bunch of roses. — Dave Hutchinson

I'm going to have a nice little nap in this sun. Don't think to wander off-I'll know if you move. A very light sleeper, I am.
Heather stared, speechless, at the woman who slept so soundly every night that she'd never heard Heather slip out of their room, or back in. Heather managed not to shake her head in disbelief, just in case Martha was watching through her lashes. — Stephanie Laurens

Should we tell your father I'm his date for the evening, or should I just surprise him?" She pulls out a piece of tomato, inspects it, scrapes something off it, then sticks it back on the hamburger.
"He won't notice," Hilary says. "He can't even tell me and Lily apart, and look at us. Just look at us."
"My dad never calls me by the right name," I say. "Only by my older sisters'. Sometimes he'll call me 'honey' really awkwardly. He's not the honey type, but it gets him out of having to remember my name."
Phoebe says, "All parents have trouble with names. I'm an only child, and my dad sometimes stops and says, 'Uh, you. — Claire LaZebnik

You're right." He cut me off. "I never understood this country. I never understood why he chose to leave everything else behind and stay for this. Not until I met you."
I felt like he'd pushed me, like I was falling and I needed him to reel those words back in to keep me standing straight.
"You /are/ this country, Amani." He spoke more quietly now. "More alive than anything ought to be in this place. All fire and gunpowder, with one finger always on the trigger. — Alwyn Hamilton

Sure, I'm pissed off. But my actions are not entirely without thought. I might regularly open my mouth without thinking, but I never start a fight without consulting my brain. For this one, I figured I'd won as soon as I made the first move. Intimidation tactics like his are common among bullies. The smaller, weaker opponent is supposed to cringe and back off. — Susan Ee

Furi felt Syn tensing up. He stopped pressing forward and Syn grabbed at his leg, urging him to continue. Furi grabbed Syn's hand off his leg and intertwined their fingers. "Relax. I refuse to hurt you. Breathe, slow and even." Furi rocked the length he already had in Syn's body slowly back and forth. "So fuckin' tight." Furi could feel the rise and fall of Syn's chest as he tried to breathe through the intrusion. "Mmmm. Burns," Syn hissed. "Trust me baby. It's gonna get real good." "I trust you," Syn whispered. Furi's heart soared at those words. Damn he wanted this man to be his, more than anything in the world. Syn was exactly what he was missing in his life. Although he never imagined falling for a cop, he wouldn't change one thing about his newly gay, over-protective Sergeant. "Good, — A.E. Via

No mistake about it. Ice is cold; roses are red; I'm in love. And this love is about to carry me off somewhere. The current's too overpowering; I don't have any choice. It may very well be a special place, some place I've never seen before. Danger may be lurking there, something that may end up wounding me deeply, fatally. I might end up losing everything. But there's no turning back. I can only go with the flow. Even if it means I'll be burned up, gone forever. — Haruki Murakami

It's never me saying, 'When is my day over?' It's more, 'When do they legally have to get me off of the lot, based on when I have to be back the next day?' The first call is a big thing in the acting world and in the union world. There needs to be a 12 hour period, and I need it. — Stephen Amell

Pages were always supposed to be off-camera - we were supposed to be invisible. But I had a moment where I saw a kid who was ready to flip himself out of the balcony, so I ran down and grabbed him and put him back in his seat. I remember the stage manager taking me aside and saying, "Can you please never do that again? I know you were saving his life, but we have you in the shot." — Anne Sweeney

He brushed my curls back off my face. I never pictured my life so complete. I never thought I'd have everything I want. You're everything to me, Angel. — Becca Fitzpatrick

In the Middle East, we have people chopping the heads off Christians, we have people chopping the heads off many other people. We have things that we have never seen before - as a group, we have never seen before, what's happening right now.The medieval times - I mean, we studied medieval times - not since medieval times have people seen what's going on. I would bring back waterboarding and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding. — Donald Trump

He rolled the other way and watched the digital display of his alarm ticking seconds off he'd never get back. This is the life we're given. One life. One opportunity to be happy, to make others happy, and I'm letting it slip through my fingers because I'm afraid. — Barbara Elsborg

I'm trying to decide
Which way to go
I think I made a wrong turn back there somewhere
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Tried to move but I lost my way
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Stopped to watch my emotions sway
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Knew the toll, but I would not pay
Didn't cha know, didn't cha know
Cause you never know where the cards may lay
Time to save the world
Where in the world is all the time
So many things I still don't know
So many times I've changed my mind
Guess I was born to make mistakes
But I ain't scared to take the weight
So when I stumble off the path
I know my heart will guide me back — Erykah Badu

The cold never bothers me when I'm filled with the hot soup of bad souls. Nevertheless I make a show of shivering. Chi strips off his leather vest and I hold it as he peels off his hoodie, pulling his shirt up with it. I get an eyeful of carved six-pack abs and bite back a whistle. Demon-hunting must be good for the physique. The looks of an angel and yet all it makes me want to do is sin. — Eliza Crewe

When your child goes off to war, you will never get him back. Not as he was, not the same boy. Changed, if he comes back at all. — Orson Scott Card

She's my wife. Back off, jarhead," he tossed back over his shoulder. Jared laughed, and it wasn't a mean laugh. Cassie bit back a grin as he stepped back, giving Mitch room to turn around before stepping right back into his personal space. His smile was knowing and totally awesome. "Actually, she's Cassie. She's nobody's wife, because the loser she was married to wasn't smart enough to know just how awesome his wife was when he had her. So if that's you, I'm sorry, bud. And I'm guessing it is, because only a moron who's never served in uniform would call someone a jarhead. You gotta be a Marine to use that term, and only to another Marine. You fail on both points, but try harder next time. — Cora Seton

(It's a weird thing, depression. Even now, writing this with a good distance of fourteen years from my lowest point, I haven't fully escaped. You get over it, but at the same time you never get over it. It comes back in flashes, when you are tired or anxious or have been eating the wrong stuff, and catches you off guard. I woke up with it a few days ago, in fact. I felt its dark wisps around my head, that ominous life-is-fear feeling. But then, after a morning with the best five- and six-year-olds in the world, it subsided. it is now an aside. Something to put brackets around. Life lesson: the way out is never through yourself.) — Matt Haig

If you skillfully follow the multidisciplinary path, you will never wish to come back. It would be like cutting off your hands. — Charlie Munger

She knew bullshit when it was being tossed at her by the shovelful. "You know, Ms Purcell, I'm at absolute capacity in the friend department. You'll have to apply elsewhere. As for Roarke and his business, that's his deal. As for you, let's get this straight: You don't look stupid, so I don't believe you think you're the first of Roarke's discarded skirts to swing back this way. You don't worry me. In fact, you don't much interest me. So if that's all?"
Slowly Magdelana slid off the desk. "The man is just never wrong is he? I don't like you."
"Aw."
She moved to the door, then stopped, leaned on the jamb as she looked over at Eve again. "Just one thing? He didn't discard me. I discarded him. And since you don't look stupid either, you know that makes all the difference. — J.D. Robb

It's the show jumpers that I find the most interesting to watch. Small kids being taken around low courses by calm, professional ponies. Teenage riders on fit ponies with their show jackets slung over the front of their saddles and their feet dangling out of their stirrups, who call out greetings to Tabby as they ride past. All different shapes and sizes of horses, because all that really matters in show jumping is their ability to clear a jump. Thoroughbreds with weedy necks and tight martingales, clunky Roman-nosed horses that look like they'll never be able to lift themselves off the ground, big Warmbloods being held back in gag bits, their shoulders slick with sweat. — Kate Lattey

For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects. We — Dorothy L. Sayers

When we got to the Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue - again Win's full name is Windsor Horne Lockwood III, so you do the math - Dad said, "You want me to just drop you off?" Sometimes my father leaves me awestruck. Fatherhood is about balance, but how can one man do it so well, so effortlessly? Throughout my life he pushed me to excel without ever crossing the line. He reveled in my accomplishments yet never made them seem to be all that important. He loved without condition, yet he still made me want to please him. He knew, like now, when to be there, and when it was time to back off. "I'll be okay." He — Harlan Coben

I never know what you're thinking. Sometimes you're so closed off ... like an island slate. You intimidate me. That's why I keep quiet. I don't know which way your mood is going to go. It swings from north to south and back again in a nanosecond. — E.L. James

Another thing I've observed is how critical the role of the CEO is when a technology truly is disruptive. In looking back on companies that have successfully launched independent disruptive business units, the CEO always had a foot in both camps. Never have they succeeded when they spin something off in order to get it off the CEO's agenda. The CEOs that did this had extraordinary personal self-confidence, and almost always they were the founders of the companies. — Clayton Christensen

I rub the ears of my dog, my stupid goddam ruddy great dog that I never wanted but who hung around anyway and who followed me thru the swamp and who bit Aaron when he was trying to choke me and who found Viola when she was lost and who's licking my hand with his little pink tongue and whose eye is still mostly squinted shut from where Mr. Prentiss Jr. kicked him and whose tail is way way shorter from where Matthew Lyle cut it off when my dog - my dog - went after a man with a machete to save me and who's right there when I need pulling back from the darkness I fall into and who tells me who I am whenever I forget. — Patrick Ness

Along this road, we won't stop moving forward
Not even if we become separated from one another.
For us, most of all, there was never a time, never a place where you could just stand still
But even so, if there were times when we were afraid, when we'd look back on it all and wonder
We'd just say that is was our destiny, wouldn't we?
So we started off, all walking down the same road — Tite Kubo

When did you guys even start speaking again?"
Ernie shrugged and popped a peanut into his mouth. "He's probably just sniffing around here so I leave him my property when I kick it." He drank his beer and leaned back into his easy chair. "Eh, he's a good kid. My sister's only son. He's family. Family's family. Never forget that, Conrad."
"Ernie, two commercial breaks ago, you told me that if I didn't try and break up my brother's wedding, I was a punk!"
Picking at his teeth, Ernie said, "If a girl's the one, all bets are off, family or no family. — Jenny Han

War's a funny thing. Some men go off and come home again just fine. But there's some that come home and never do come back. — Victoria Wilcox

A thump thump thump noise that was so unfamiliar, and yet I couldn't quite place it. But I knew it. It was
"Mmm-hmmm," Monica murmured, just as Wes came view into the path. He was running, his pace quick and steady. He was in shorts, his shirt off, staring ahead as he passed. His back was tan and gleaming with sweat.
God god!" she said finally, fanning her face with her hand, "I've seen it a million times but it just never gets old. Never. — Sarah Dessen

Some things happen to us from which we never recover, and they disrupt the normalcy of our lives. That's how life is. Human nature has a tendency to try to reconstruct old ways and pick up where we left off. If we're wise, we won't continue to go back to the way things were (we can't anyway). We must instead forget the old standard and accept a 'new normal. — Don Piper

I devised a test.
I turned off the TV and instantly the snoring stopped. She began to move. When I felt her eyes about to open, I turned the TV back on and back to sleep she went. Then I'd turn it off and on - sometimes for millisecond - and she never failed me. Each time it was off, she's move and mutter - each time it was on, she'd sleep.
By the time the headlights from Amy's Nova turned into our driveway, my suspicion had been confirmed. My mother has a more intimate, connected relationship with this television than she has ever had with me. — Peter Hedges

Chance looked over at Quinn as he explained the rules... again. Chance knew all of those things, hell, he had lived by them since he bedded his first woman. In the fact, he even added a rule of his own. He never, under any circumstances, went back for seconds with the women he slept with. He was infamous for pissing off women when they said something about him calling them, or seeing them again. Rather than pulling a dodging act most men learned at method which gained him adoration from other men and venom from women. No matter how progressive a woman claimed to be, the moment she realized she had just been fucked like she had never been fucked before or would ever be fucked again; they wanted to hang on. Chance had termed it the law of dickmitizing. — Shyloh Morgan

They went back to scooping up breakfast, licking the mess off their fingers. Soon the pile of berry mush was gone and their tongues were dyed a nice midnight blue. Ian seemed in a good mood, sticking his tongue out playfully at his best friend. Eena did likewise, right back at him. She was happy he was smiling, even if his teeth were purple.
(You're too much fun, Eena,) Ian announced in her mind. (I'm really glad we're friends.)
(Me too,) she agreed. (Best friends.)
Ian leaned back on his hands and watched the waves roll in from far off. The swells were building into large, flat-crested waves.
(Angelle never thought like you do. You're creative and kinda crazy. Her thoughts were always more simple and, well ... ..normal.)
(Yeah, well, deadly dragons and evil witches tend to suck all the normal right out of you,) she grumbled.
(I suppose.) — Richelle E. Goodrich

A giant octopus living way down deep at the bottom of the ocean. It has this tremendously powerful life force, a bunch of long, undulating legs, and it's heading somewhere, moving through the darkness of the ocean ... It takes on all kinds of different shapes - sometimes it's 'the nation,' and sometimes it's 'the law,' and sometimes it takes on shapes that are more difficult and dangerous than that. You can try cutting off its legs, but they just keep growing back. Nobody can kill it. It's too strong, and it lives too far down in the ocean. Nobody knows where its heart is. What I felt then was a deep terror. And a kind of hopelessness, a feeling that I could never run away from this thing, no matter how far I went. And this creature, this thing doesn't give a damn that I'm me or you're you. In its presence, all human beings lose their names and their faces. We all turn into signs, into numbers. — Haruki Murakami

The advice of his father came back to
him, never to take your eyes off a
wounded boar: that once you
engaged an animal in the hunt, you must
fight it to the finish, and that when a boar
was wounded, that was when it the most
dangerous animal of all.
That thought nagged at him. — C.S. Pacat

John & Mobay Africa presented their case. Some days John Africa would lean back in his chair and close his eyes. His court appointed attorney told him one day that if he continued to go off to sleep, it would hurt his case. His response was: "I'll hurt my case if I don't sleep!" The guy never said anything more to him about sleeping. — Louise Leaphart James

The wind was blowing from the east and the cedars bent before it, - blowing from the east like the breath of the war god. And Fred and Stanley were waving their hats gayly back to her, while the cedars bent and the wind blew from the east. They were like her own boys marching off to war. Children of her children, she loved them as she had loved their parents. Did a woman never get over loving? Deep love brought relatively deep heartaches. Why could not a woman of her age, whose family was raised, relinquish the hold upon her emotions? Why could she not have a peaceful old age, wherein there entered neither great affection nor its comrade, great sorrow? She had seen old women who seemed not to care as she was caring, whose emotions seemed to have died with their youth. Could she not be one of them? For a long time she stood in the window and looked at the cedars twisting before the east wind, like so many helpless women under the call from the east. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Ask me, then, if I believe in the spirit of the things as they were used, and I'll say yes. They're all here. All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. And we'll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable. And somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time, and the mountains were shaped and seen under those names. The names we'll give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard. No matter how we touch Mars, we'll never touch it. And then we'll get mad at it, and you know what we'll do? We'll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves. — Ray Bradbury

Back in the eighth century bc two kingdoms, Israel and Judah, occupied roughly the territory of modern Israel. The two kingdoms fought each other, but their inhabitants shared a religion and a common ancestry, because all of them belonged to one of twelve tribes descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. The kingdom of Israel was the older of the two and was originally the location of the religion's holy sites. When that kingdom was invaded by the Assyrians in the eighth century bc, though, tens of thousands of its inhabitants were carried off to northern Iraq. The kingdom of Judah was spared; its inhabitants came to be called Judeans, and then Jews. They, too, were taken into exile in Babylon, and came back with new ideas and changed traditions. As for the exiles from Israel, they were never heard of again, and came to be called the Ten Lost Tribes. But not all the ten tribes were truly lost, say the Samaritans. Some were deported by the Assyrians, yes, but others remained. — Gerard Russell

As we joined the line of people getting off at the last stop before Sofia, I looked once more at the little boy, whom I felt I would never forget, though maybe it wasn't exactly him I would remember, I thought, but the use I would make of him. I had my notes, I knew I would write a poem about him, and then it would be the poem I remembered, which would be both true and false at once, the image I made replacing the real image. Making poems was a way of loving things, I had always thought, of preserving them, of living moments twice; or more than that, it was a way of living more fully, of bestowing on experience a richer meaning. But that wasn't what it felt like when I looked back at the boy, wanting a last glimpse of him; it felt like a loss. Whatever I could make of him would diminish him, and I wondered whether I wasn't really turning my back on things in making them into poems, whether instead of preserving the world I was taking refuge from it. — Garth Greenwell