Never Lay Down Quotes & Sayings

People have been trying to understand dogs ever since the beginning of time. One never knows what they'll do. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master. Some people call this loyalty. I don't. I may be wrong, but I call it love - the deepest kind of love. . . . It's a shame that people all over the world can't have that kind of love in their hearts. . . . There would be no wars, slaughter, or murder; no greed or selfishness. It would be the kind of world that God wants us to have - a wonderful world. - Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows — Rebecca Frankel

A slight smile curved the corners of Genevieve's lips as she lay back into the perfumed water. What would it be like to live her days in this exotic setting? To never again have to whistle down a taxi, make a mad rush for the subway or try to eat a sandwich at her desk in between telephone calls? What would it be like to awake when she chose? To sun and swim, to have someone draw her bath and prepare her for the evening to come?

What would it be like to be sent for by a man like Ali Ben Hari, to go silently down the long corridors to his chambers? To have him come to hers at night, when the air was scented with orange blossoms and jasmine? — Barbara Faith

All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete,or a scientist, or an independent business creator. in service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. Becoming a parent is one of these basic human transformational deeds. By this act, we change our fundamental relationship with the universe- if nothing else, we lose our place as the pinnacle and end-point of evolution, and become a mere link. The demands of motherhood especially consume the old self, and replace it with something new, often better and wiser, sometimes wearier or disillusioned, or tense and terrified, certainly more self-knowing, but never the same again. — Lois McMaster Bujold

To think nothing of symmetry and much of convenience; never to remove an anomaly merely because it is an anomaly; never to innovate except when some grievance is felt; never to innovate except so far as to get rid of the grievance; never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than the particular case for which it is necessary to provide; these are the rules which have, from the age of John to the age of Victoria, generally guided the deliberations of our two hundred and fifty Parliaments — John M. Marincola

Morphine hits the backs of the legs first, then the back of the neck, a spreading wave of relaxation slackening the muscles away from the bones so that you seem to float without outlines, like lying in warm salt water. As this relaxing wave spread through my tissues, I experienced a strong feeling of fear. I had the feeling that some horrible image was just beyond the field of vision, moving as I turned my head, so that I never quite saw it. I felt nauseous; I lay down and closed my eyes. A series of pictures passed, like watching a movie: A huge, neon-lighted cocktail bar that got larger and larger until streets, traffic, and street repairs were included in it; a waitress carrying a skull on a tray; stars in a clear sky. The physical impact of the fear of death; the shutting off of breath; the stopping of blood. — William S. Burroughs

I never believed that U2 wanted to save the whales. I don't believe that The Beastie Boys are ready to lay it down for Tibet. — Iggy Pop

My love for her burns within me like a flame; she is the child I carry within my heart. I am the lover of her soul; she will not be taken from me. I will be with Naomi, should the Lord tarry, until we lay down together and die. Even then, we will hold each other in death, breathless and asleep underneath the ice and snow and mud. We will hold each other and never be alone. — Amy Espeseth

I lay my tasks down one by one; I sit in the silence of twilight grace. Out of the shadows, deep and dun, Steals, like a star, my Baby's face ... I will take up my work once more, As if I had never laid it down. Who will dream that I ever wore, In triumph, motherhood's sacred crown? ... Nevertheless, the way is long, And tears leap up in the light of the sun. I'd give my world for a cradle-song, And a kiss from Baby?only one. — Mary C. Ames

He bent, lips coming to mine and
'Derek? Chloe?' It was Kit, opening the back door. Derek let out a low growl.
'Never fails.' I turned to Kit. 'How is she?'
'We're going to take her back to the house now. She's unconscious again.'
'Then we'll walk back,' Derek said. 'Give you room in the van to lay her down.'
His dad agreed and went back inside. As we walked toward the steps, I looked down at Derek's hand, holding mine.
'No one's around,' he said. 'And we can take the back way.'
'Good,' I said, and entwined my fingers with his. — Kelley Armstrong

As to your families my counsel is, never lay down your authority to a wife or child, but treat them so kindly they will never want to leave you. — Brigham Young

O'Neill could feel rising off them devotion and love for him, and he knew they would lay down their lives for their high chieftain and for the new cause, only now taking shape in their heads. The cause. Unthinkable just a year before - freedom from occupation. Freedom from oppression. Indeed, their heinous oppressors were approaching - English soldiers who had slaughtered their brothers, their wives, their mothers. Their children. Soldiers who had mindlessly laid waste to their home provinces. To Ireland. Never before had these men fought for the whole of this ancient land, but now they understood, and their hearts - God bless their staunch hearts - were strong and ready to fight. Raising his sword high above his head, O'Neill, with slow deliberation, lowered it, and the glorious blue morning exploded into sound. C — Robin Maxwell

I need you to know I never meant it. I said it because I thought that's what you're supposed to say, but it didn't mean anything. And it's different with you. This is the first time I've been scared. Scared you'll change your mind. Scared I'll screw it up. Aces, Cress, I'm terrified of you." Her stomach fluttered. He didn't look terrified. "Here's the thing." Thorne crawled over her legs and lay down beside her, boots and all. "You deserve better than some thief who's going to end up in jail again. Everyone knows it. Even I know it. But you seem determined to believe I'm actually a decent guy who's halfway worthy of you. So, what scares me most" - he twisted a lock of her hair between his fingers - "is that someday even you will realize that you can do better. — Marissa Meyer

I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they'd like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts. — Judy Blume

She lay there thinking, on the rich, wet graveyard grass, before the tomb of some random parishioner - Beloved Son, Husband, Father - and what she thought was this: she'd been right about almost everything. She'd gotten nearly full marks. A minus again. Blew only one question.

Here's the one thing I got wrong, she thought. I thought that they could never wear me down. — Lev Grossman

You promise to stop if I say so?" she asked doubtfully, even while she lay down.
"I promise. Though never trust anything a man tells you when he's got his head between your legs. — Anna Campbell

What we dedicate today is not a memorial to war, rather it's a tribute to the physical and moral courage that makes heroes out of farm and city boys and that inspires Americans in every generation to lay down their lives for people they will never meet, for ideals that make life itself worth living. — Bob Dole

I walked far down a dirt side road and into a farmer's field - some sort of cereal that was chest high and corn green and rustled as its blades inflicted small paper burns on my skin as I walked through them. And in that field, when the appointed hour, minute, and second of the darkness came, I lay myself down on the ground, surrounded by the tall pithy grain stalks and the faint sound of insects, and held my breath, there experiencing a mood that I have never really been able to shake completely - a mood of darkness and inevitability and facination - a mood that surely must have been held by most young people since the dawn of time as they have crooked their necks, stared at the heavens, and watched their sky go out. — Douglas Coupland

I don't want to die, Arlen, but I would lay down my life for any of these men, or they for me. That's a real thing, sacrifice, but you will never understand it. — Erika Johansen

We all have talents that, sometimes, we never quite fulfill. We're all scared, deep down, but maybe we just need to lay it on the line and explore our abilities and just not be afraid of failing. — Chrissie Wellington

The baby closed its mouth, staring at him with hope and small hiccups.
"Jesus," he said. He lay down on the bed, pulling the pillow under his head, and drew the whole bundle of coat, shawl and infant up against his shirt. A tiny hand closed tight on the lace. One sob erupted, and then changed midbreath to a soft sigh.
Women, he thought sardonically, sinking in the bedclothes, with sleep revolving and closing in his head. He moved one finger, feeling a cheek as soft as down.
What's your name?
Ask the girl. Remember that ...
Maddy ...
It was wrong. I must leave thee now.
Don't cry. Don't cry, little girl ... I'm so tired. I never deserved you, did I? Maddy ... but I loved you.
I always loved you. — Laura Kinsale

What if ... all the rules and ways we lay down in our heads, don't even exist at all? What if we only believe that they're there, because we want to think that they're there? All the formalities of morality and the decisions that we see ourselves making in order to be better (or the best) ... what if we think we've got it all under control - but we don't? What if the path for you, is one that you would never dare take because you never saw yourself going that way? And then what if you realized that one day - would you take the path for you? Or would you choose to believe in your rules and your reasons? Your moralities and your hopes? What if your own hope, and your own morality - are going the other way? — C. JoyBell C.

You only had to see a unicorn lay open the side of a centaur once, the ribcage flashing white when the ripped skin flopped down, to swear a mighty oath never to fuck with or even look at another unicorn again. I'm putting down the hearts and fluffy clouds and backing away slowly. Don't want any trouble here. You can have all the rainbows. — Lev Grossman

I thought to never have a family, to never have a woman I could love, physically, but when I met ye, I realized love was not merely a physical act. It was about being willing to lay down yer life for another. — Ashley York

We need to understand that a man can never lay down his religion and act as a religionless person. — Joseph C. Morecraft III

My price was his oath that he'd never lay a hand on you again. I told him I'd forgive him in exchange for that.
She wished he'd punched her in the gut. It would have hurt less. Not trusting herself to keep from falling to her knees with shame right there, she just stalked down the hall. — Sarah J. Maas

By the Valg, three were made,
Of the gate-Stone of the Wyrd:
Obsidian the gods forbade
And stone they greatly feared.

In grief, he hid one in the crown
Of her he loved so well,
To keep with her where she lay down
Inside the starry cell.

The second one was hidden
In a mountain made of fire,
Where all men are forbidden
Despite their great desires.

Where the third lies
Will never be told
By voice or tongue
Or sum of gold. — Sarah J. Maas

If this was the true self it was marvelous and what's more it seemed never to change but always to pick up from the last stop, to continue in the same vein, a vein I had struck when I was a child and went down in the street for the first time alone and there frozen into the dirty ice of the gutter lay a dead cat, the first time I had looked at death and grasped it. From that moment I knew what it was to be isolated: every object, every living thing and every dead thing led its independent existence. My thoughts too led to an independent existence. — Henry Miller

I was perpetually grief-stricken when I finished a book, and would slide down from my sitting position on the bed, put my cheek on the pillow and sigh for a long time. It seemed there would never be another book. It was all over, the book was dead. It lay in its bent cover by my hand. What was the use? Why bother dragging the weight of my small body down to dinner? Why move? Why breathe? The book had left me, and there was no reason to go on. — Marya Hornbacher

Never sleep anywhere but in my bed." She might have protested, but he turned her roughly so that she lay on her stomach, her cheek pressed into his pillow. He lay on top of her, his upper body braced on his arms but his hips and legs weighing her down. Trapping and holding her. "You're mine," he said, laying his cheek against hers. "Mine and no one else's. — Elizabeth Hoyt

How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are! [ ... ] When we are weary with travel, we lay down our load and rest by the wayside. So, when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be refreshed as never mortal was? Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. When we would rest our bodies we cease to support them; we recline on the lap of the earth. So, when we would rest our spirits, we must recline on the Great Spirit. Let things alone; let them weigh what they will; let them soar of fall. — Henry David Thoreau

I went to bed wearing my oldest, most faded flannel shirt, the bra that had looked all right in the catalog but was obviously an escapee from a downmarket nursing home when it arrived, white cotton panties that had had pansies on them about seven hundred washings ago and were now a kind of mottled gray, and the jeans I usually wore for housecleaning or raking Yolande's garden because they were too shabby for work even if I never came out of the bakery. Food inspector arrest-on-sight jeans. Oh, and fuzzy green plaid socks. It was a cool night for summer. Relatively. I lay down on top of the bedspread. And slept through till the alarm at three-forty-five. He hadn't come. T — Robin McKinley

Where is Wilkins, anyway?" Cameron asked.
"In the living room, being accosted by eighteen women who think he's a stripper. I thought it was best to duck in here."
"So much for never leaving a man behind."
"If he starts screaming, I'll lay down a cover fire and go pull him out. — Julie James

You know I want you. You know all this foreplay is in hope that one day I get to lay you down and love you. I think about it at least ten times a day, every day. I'm jealous as fuck of every feeling you have for Evan. I want you to tell him once and for all you're with me and never leave my arms, my life or my bed again. But for now, I'll settle for watching a movie and falling asleep with you in my arms. — S.E. Hall

His body had become a companion which seemed always about to leave him: it had its own pains which moved him to pity, and its own particular movements which he tried hard to follow. He had learned from it how to keep his eyes down on the road, so that he could see no one, and how important it was never to look back - although there were times when memories of an earlier life filled him with grief and he lay face down upon the grass until the sweet rank odour of the earth brought him to his senses. But slowly he forgot where it was he had come from, and what it was he was escaping. — Peter Ackroyd

Father's face was buried in early summer flowers. There was something gruesome about the utter freshness of those flowers. It was as though they were peering down into the bottom of a well. For a dead man's face falls to an infinite depth beneath the surface which the face possessed when it was alive, leaving nothing for the survivors to see but the frame of a mask; it falls so deep, indeed, that it can never be pulled back to the surface. A dead man's face can tell us better than anything else in this world how far removed we are from the true existence of physical substance, how impossible it is for us to lay hands on the way in which this substance exists. — Yukio Mishima

Of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both sides of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It's all very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality. I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due instalments plan. It's a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular, in the next house so to speak. — James Joyce

Once I understand that my enemy is never going to lay down arms and sign a peace treaty with, I would be wise to remain on full alert at all times. — Lynn Austin

Let me tell you a story, Alix. This ship ... the Talia? It's named after my father's older sister. She killed herself when she was fourteen because she couldn't stand living the horror of her life for another day. With her death she both condemned and freed my father from his monster of a father. I never knew the pain of her life or his. But I named this ship after her to remind me of all the children out there like her and Omari ... the children out there like your sister who are silent in their pain. They have no voice and no hope. But I hear them. Every time I think of my parents. Every time I see Omari, I hear the sobs that are kept inside for fear of it making their lives worse, and I will not stand by and see your sister torn apart by an animal. You help me nail him and I swear to you, I will lay Merjack down at your feet and hold him there while you take your revenge. (Devyn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Let us march immediately, and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence. — Nathan Hale

Dr. Sadler opened up the drawers of his desk. All empty - except for supplies. "Tell me," said the patient, "where do you keep your unfinished business?" "Finished!" said Sadler. "And where do you keep your unanswered mail?" "Answered!" Sadler told him. "My rule is never to lay down a letter until I have answered it. I — Dale Carnegie

This isn't about the Ravens. This is about you. This is about everything it took you to get to this point, everything it cost you, and everyone who laughed when you dared to dream of something big and bright. You're here tonight because you refused to give up and refused to give in. You're here where they all said you'd never be, and no one can say you haven't earned the right to play this game.
"All eyes are on you. It's time to show them what you're made of. There's no room for doubt, no room for second guesses, no room for error. This is your night. This is your game. This is your moment. Seize it with everything you've got. Pull out all the stops and lay it all on the line. Fight because you don't know how to die quietly. Win because you don't know how to lose. This king's ruled long enough - it's time to tear his castle down. — Nora Sakavic

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms never never never! — William Pitt

I mean, most parents would be proud of a kid like that - good-lookin' and smart and everything, but they gave in to him all the time. He kept trying to make someone say 'No' and they never did. They never did. That was what he wanted. For somebody to tell him 'No.' To have somebody lay down the law, set the limits, give him something solid to stand on. That's what we all want, really. — S.E. Hinton

A man has always wanted to lay me down but he never wanted to pick me up. — Eartha Kitt

My life has ever been devoted to her service from my youth up, though never before in a cause like this - a cause for which I would most cheerfully risk and lay down my life. — David Wooster

Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate.
Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate.
Today is build on tragedies which no one want's to face.
Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced.
Tonight is filled with Rage, violence in the air.
Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares.
Tonight I lay my head down but the pressure never stops,
knowing that my sanity content when I'm droped.
But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new,
build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth.
Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride.
I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive. — Tupac Shakur

Bilbo had never seen or imagined anything of the kind. They were high up in a narrow place, with a dreadful fall into a dim valley at one side of them. There they were sheltering under a hanging rock for the night, and he lay beneath a blanket and shook from head to toe. When he peeped out in the lightning-flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang. Then came a wind and a rain, and the wind whipped the rain and the hail about in every direction, so that an overhanging rock was no protection at all. Soon they were getting drenched and their ponies were standing with their heads down and their tails between their legs, and some of them were whinnying with fright. They could hear the giants guffawing and shouting all over the mountainsides. — J.R.R. Tolkien

One day I'll give birth to a tiny baby girl
and when she's born she'll scream
and I'll tell her to never stop
I will kiss her before I lay her down at night
and will tell her a story so she knows
how it is and how it must be for her to survive
I'll tell her to set things on fire
and keep them burning
I'll teach her that fire will not consume her
that she must use it — Nicole Blackman

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery.
I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.
I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.
I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.
I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your bitterness.
I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser and unassuaged.
Oh, cold and dreamless under the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of the hillsides. — Mary Oliver

To find the point where hypothesis and fact meet; the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality; the place where fantasy and earthly things are metamorphosed into a work of art; the hour when faith in the future becomes knowledge of the past; to lay down one's power for others in need; to shake off the old ordeal and get ready for the new; to question, knowing that never can the full answer be found; to accept uncertainties quietly, even our incomplete knowledge of God; this is what man's journey is about, I think. — Lillian Smith

I walked to his bedside table next. Infinite Mayhem. the ninth sequel to The Prince of Dawn, lay atop the table next to his reading lamp, the corner of page 138 turned down. He'd never made it to the end of the book. 'Spoiler alert: Mayhem survives,' I said out loud to him, just in case he could hear me. — John Green

If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi ... in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy them all. — Thomas Jefferson

free." On the edge of town, Fitzgerald saw a sight "that has never left my memory. It was a picture story of the death of one 82nd Airborne trooper. He had occupied a German foxhole and made it his personal Alamo. In a half circle around the hole lay the bodies of nine German soldiers. The body closest to the hole was only three feet away, a potato masher [grenade] in its fist.II The other distorted forms lay where they had fallen, testimony to the ferocity of the fight. His ammunition bandoliers were still on his shoulders, empty of M-1 clips. Cartridge cases littered the ground. His rifle stock was broken in two. He had fought alone and, like many others that night, he had died alone. "I looked at his dog tags. The name read Martin V. Hersh. I wrote the name down in a small prayer book I carried, hoping someday I would meet someone who knew him. I never did."34 — Stephen E. Ambrose

May you never lay your head down, without a hand to hold. May you never make your bed out in the cold. — John Martyn

I once preached a sermon in the open air in haying time during a violent storm of rain. The text was, "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth," and surely we had the blessing as well as the inconvenience. I was sufficiently wet, and my congregation must have been drenched, but they stood it out, and I never heard that anybody was the worse in health, though, I thank God, I have heard of souls brought to Jesus under that discourse. Once in a while, and under strong excitement, such things do no one any harm, but we are not to expect miracles, nor wantonly venture upon a course of procedure which might kill the sickly and lay the foundations of disease in the strong. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

No one is adequate to comprehending the misery of my lot! Fate obliges me to be constantly in movement: I am not permitted to pass more than a fortnight in the same place. I have no Friend in the world, and from the restlessness of my destiny I never can acquire one. Fain would I lay down my miserable life, for I envy those who enjoy the quiet of the Grave: But Death eludes me, and flies from my embrace. In vain do I throw myself in the way of danger. I plunge into the Ocean; The Waves throw me back with abhorrence upon the shore: I rush into fire; The flames recoil at my approach: I oppose myself to the fury of Banditti; Their swords become blunted, and break against my breast: The hungry Tiger shudders at my approach, and the Alligator flies from a Monster more horrible than itself. God has set his seal upon me, and all his Creatures respect this fatal mark! — Matthew Gregory Lewis

Here's something else to think about: calling when you say you're going to is the very first brick in the house you are building of love and trust. If he can't lay this one stupid brick down, you ain't never gonna have a house baby, and it's cold outside. — Greg Behrendt

For once, he slept first. She lay in the dark, listening to him breathe, stealing a little of his warmth as her own body cooled. Since he was asleep, she stroked his hair.
"I love you," she murmured. "I love you so much, I'm stupid about it."
With a sigh, she settled down, closed her eyes, and willed her mind to empty.
Beside her, Roarke smiled into the dark.
He never slept first. — J.D. Robb

She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Her emotions boiled up like one of the Yellowstone geysers just down the road. First shock and right on its heels came fury. When Hud had left town five years ago, she'd convinced herself she'd never have to lay eyes on that sorry son of a bitch again. And here he was. Damn, just when she thought things couldn't get any worse. — B. J. Daniels

And then I went back into my room, locked into a sequence as perfect as a pattern, and I sat down on my great rock throne, invisible to the outside world but palpable beneath me, and from how my face felt I thought maybe I was crying, either because I didn't want to do this or because I did, it was hard to tell and anyway I never would, who would believe me in either case and who would be there to believe me in all cases, it was a puzzle, I had yet to learn the way of the jigsaw, and so I positioned the rifle beneath my chin, it feels cold, like an actual thing in the actual present physical world, OK, there it is, I am here now, and then I lay down on my belly and listened to the rising squall beyond the door. — John Darnielle

Men," said Mr. Kyle, "people have been trying to understand dogs ever since the beginning of time. One never knows what they'll do. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master. Some people call this loyalty. I don't. I may be wrong, but I call it love - the deepest kind of love."
After these words were spoken, a thoughtful silence settled over the men. The mood was broken by the deep growling voice I had heard back in the washout.
"It's a shame that people all over the world can't have that kind of love in their hearts," he said. "There would be no wars, slaughter, or murder; no greed or selfishness. It would be the kind of world that God wants us to have - a wonderful world. — Wilson Rawls

We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow mockery of it, that death is of sleep. Where, in the dull eyes of doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where, in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come? Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin. Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image. — Charles Dickens

One morning in April, I woke up a little sick. I lay there looking at shadows on the white plaster ceiling. I remembered a long time ago, when I lay in bed beside my mother, watching lights from the street move across the ceiling and down the walls. I felt the sharp nostalgia of train whistles, piano music down a city street, burning leaves. A mild degree of junk sickness always brought me the magic of childhood. It never fails, I thought, just like a shot; I wonder if all junkies score for this wonderful stuff. — William S. Burroughs

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

The young must grow old
Whilst old ones grow older.
And cowards will shrink
As the bold grow bolder.
Courage may blossom in quiet hearts,
For who can tell where bravery starts?
Truth is a song, oft lying unsung,
Some mother bird protecting her young.
Those who lay down their lives for friends,
The echo rolls onward, it seldom ends.
Who never turned and ran, but stayed?
This is a warrior, born, not made.
Living in peace, aye many a season,
Calm in life and sound in reason,
Till evil arrives, a wicked horde
Driving the warrior to pick up his sword
The challenger rings then, straight and fair,
Justice is with us, beware, beware. — Brian Jacques

Isabelle had been trained to wake up early every morning, rain or shine, and a slight hangover did nothing to prevent it from happening again. She sat up slowly and blinked down at Simon. She'd never spent and entire night in a bed with anyone else, unless you counted crawling into her parents bed when she was four and afraid of thunderstorms. She couldn't help staring at Simon as if he were some exotic species of animal. He lay on his back, his mouth slightly open, his hair in his eyes. Ordinary brown hair, ordinary brown eyes. His t-shirt was pulled up slightly. He wasn't muscular like a shadowhunter. He had a smooth flat stomach but no six-pack, and there was still a hint of softness to his face. What was it about him that fascinated her? He was plenty cute, but she had dated gorgeous faerie knights, sexy shadowhunters ...
"Isabelle," Simon said without opening his eyes. "Quit staring at me. — Cassandra Clare

She led them to their pallets, again encircled by other pallets. She sat down, sighing at her aching muscles, and caught his gaze. "You may, er, wrap your arms around me if that will make you feel I am safer."
He chuckled--a hoarse chuckle, rusty, but a chuckle nonetheless. She'd take it.
"May I indeed?" He lay beside her and pulled her back against him, settling her head on his arm, bunching the other hide up to use as a pillow. "If I must." His warm sigh tickled across her neck. "After all, I must ensure that pinkie does not wander."
Would Robert never let her forget that? — Angela Quarles

I understand that if you have never suffered a broken heart, then you have never really known what it is to truly be alive. And I understand that at that precise moment, when your heart breaks open, that all you want to do is lay down and die! Because you know that is the only way the pain is ever going to stop. — Patti Roberts

I've seen ye so many times," he said, his voice whispering warm in my ear. "You've come to me so often. When I dreamed sometimes.When I lay in fever. When I was so afraid and so lonely I knew I must die. When I needed you, I would always see ye, smiling, with your hair curling up about your face. But ye never spoke. And ye never touched me."
"I can touch you now." I reached up and drew my hand gently down his temple, his ear, the cheek and jaw that I could see. My hand went to the nape of his neck, under the clubbed bronze hair, and he raised his head at last, and cupped his face between my hands, love glowing strong in the dark blue eyes.
"Dinna be afraid," he said softly, "There's the two of us now. — Diana Gabaldon

He didn't go down to dinner at all that night, didn't eat, didn't drink, simply thought of his wife, trying to decide what to do with her. He'd wanted her to suffer, and she'd suffered. He'd wanted her to pay for her deceits, and she'd saved his life. He'd wanted to torment her with the knowledge that she would never see him again and had instead created his own private hell. He wanted her to come to him again, giving herself to him as she had that night before her attempted escape, and he wanted to hear words she would never speak. He'd even started lying to himself as he lay sleepless in his bed, reliving each moment of their last night together, telling himself it was real, that she'd meant every word. He was going mad. — Elizabeth Elliott

For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called "going to sleep" but rather "passing out," a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment. — David Sedaris

It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf. "It is time to hunt again." He was going to spring down hill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world. — Rudyard Kipling

Arthur found himself staring down at the knife embedded in his foot. There was a surreal split second before the blood started to well up and then up it came, dark and thick as syrup.
Arthur looked at Jake and saw that he was staring at the knife. His expression was one of surprise, and this was something that Arthur wondered about later too. Was Jake surprised because he had never considered the possibility that he might be a less than perfect shot? Did he have that much confidence in himself, that little self-doubt?
Or was he merely surprised at how easy it was to give in to an impulse, and carry through the thought which lay in your mind? Simply to do whatever you wanted to do, and damn the consequences. — Mary Lawson

Well, PT Anderson sent me a script of Boogie Nights which I let lay around my house for about three months, then one day I'm cleaning my office and decided that I'd better read this before the guy calls me back. I never put it down, bro. — Luis Guzman

On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over, - a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offense to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. — Jack London

As soon as he had left the room and walked into the air, he knew that he would never return and for the first time his fears lifted. It was a spring morning, and when he walked into Severndale Park he felt the breeze bringing back memories of a much earlier life, and he was at peace. He sat beneath a tree and looked up at its leaves in amazement - where once he might have gazed at them and sensed there only the confusion of his own thoughts, now each leaf was so clear and distinct that he could see the lightly coloured veins which carried moisture and life. And he looked down at his own hand, which seemed translucent beside the bright grass. His head no longer ached, and as he lay upon the earth he could feel its warmth beneath him. — Peter Ackroyd

Laying down what we want to protect or are afraid of losing or are terrified we will never have is not the same thing as losing those things. It is surrendering them. It is opening up our clenched hand around them and allowing God access to them and to us. It is actually saying yes to God for them. Yes to his plan. Yes to his way. It is believing that just as his ways are higher than the heavens are above the earth, so his way for the things we fear is higher. This God of ours is a God of life, of goodness. He is the God of the Resurrection. We lay down our fear. We pick up Jesus. He is the only way we can live beyond fear. He is the Way. — Stasi Eldredge

As he took possession of it, he was overcome by a sense of something like sacred awe. He carefully spread his horse blanket on the ground as if dressing an altar and lay down on it. He felt blessedly wonderful. He was lying a hundred and fifty feet below the earth, inside the loneliest mountain in France - as if in his own grave. Never in his life had he felt so secure, certainly not in his mother's belly. The world could go up on flames out there, but he would not even notice it here. He even began to cry softly. He did not know who to thank for such good fortune. — Patrick Suskind

He had chosen to spend his days in the world of men. Life was what mattered, its slow, priceless pulse, its burning fragility; his debt lay with those importunate Flanders echoes that had never really left him. The private could aspire to be a general because both general and private, at their best, recognized the dire importance of strategy, fortitude, the value of their imperiled existence; but when the machinist became the executive he left the world of tangibles and human conjugacy and entered a shadow world of credits and consols - a world that seemed to reward nothing so much as irresponsibility and boundless greed. And when the thunder rolled down upon them - as he knew it would - how would he feel, playing with paper, striving to outwit his fellows, drinking imported Scotch evenings and listening to the brittle parade of comedians on radio ...? — Anton Myrer

I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.
(Pause. Krapp's lips move. No sound.)
Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited. — Samuel Beckett

Jesus. Janet had to turn away. You only had to see a unicorn lay open the side of a centaur once, the ribcage flashing white when the ripped skin flopped down, to swear a mighty oath never to fuck with or even look at another unicorn again. I'm putting down the hearts and fluffy clouds and backing away slowly. Don't want any trouble here. You can have all the rainbows. It — Lev Grossman

And what of Joan's presence among so many young, armed men? Perhaps of all the nobles and military men, the Duke of Alencon - that dedicated, courageous and skillful commander - may be trusted most. Although he was a man who had a keen eye for attractive and available women, he too recognized a rare quality of sincere devotion that deflected any tendency to make sexual overtures. 'Sometimes I lay down to sleep with Joan and the soldiers,' Alencon recalled. 'We were all in the straw together, and sometimes I saw Joan prepare for the night. Sometimes too I looked at her breasts, which were beautiful. And yet I never had any carnal desire for her. — Donald Spoto

My father quoted Shakespeare to me often and when I lay a book down with splayed pages he told me better to be cruel to animals, children even, but never so cruelly treat a book. — Christine Wade

was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf. "It is time to hunt again." He was going to spring down hill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world." It was the jackal - Tabaqui, the Dish-licker - and the wolves of India — Rudyard Kipling

Every artist knows that there is no such thing as "freedom" in art. The first thing an artist does when he begins a new work is to lay down the barriers and limitations; he decides upon a certain composition, a certain key, a certain relation of creatures or objects to each other. He is never free, and the more splendid his imagination, the more intense his feeling, the farther he goes from general truth and general emotion. — Willa Cather

Deep down,
I lay dormant inside her head,
Deep down,
I lay the rules inside her head,
Deep down,
I lay inside inside her heart,
Deep down,
I know she will never move on
Because deep down, I am always there — Tanzy Sayadi

My grandmother say you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas. A hard head makes a soft behind. Life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you're going to get. — Cupcake Brown

He made what apology he could and hurried home, overjoyed that the satisfaction of his curiosity had preserved their love intact, and that, having feigned for so long, when in Odette's company, a sort of indifference, he had not now, by a demonstration of jealousy, given her that proof of the excess of his own passion which, in a pair of lovers, fully and finally dispenses the recipient from the obligation to love the other enough. He never spoke to her of this misadventure, he cased even to think of it himself. But now and then his thoughts in their wandering course would come upon this memory where it lay unobserved, would startle it into life, thrust it more deeply down into his consciousness, and leave him aching with a sharp, far-rooted pain. — Marcel Proust

But I pushed and pulled in vain, the wheels would not turn. It was as though the brakes were jammed, and heaven knows they were not, for my bicycle had no brakes. And suddenly overcome by a great weariness, in spite of the dying day when I always felt most alive, I threw the bicycle back in the bush and lay down on the ground, on the grass, careless of the dew, I never feared the dew. — Samuel Beckett

It was impossible to imagine a time when [Fielding's] dry wit wouldn't be around to make me laugh, or to imagine someone else being the one to see the joy on his face when he learned something new. I thought about all of that, and then I thought about never holding him again, never kissing him again, never again experiencing Fielding pushy and demanding and needing me so bad he trembled with it.
And man, it fucking hurt.
"Okay," I said out loud, swallowing hard. "Okay, I give. Uncle."
It was time to admit defeat, to lay down my cards, and concede the game.
For the first time in my life, I was in love. I was in love with a guy. I was in love with Fielding Monroe. — Eli Easton

Smiling now, Michael Dawn sat on his rooftop, gazing at the stars above him, just like men had done for thousands of years. Out there lay secrets and mysteries that an eternity could never unravel, worlds he could only imagine. Yet looking at them then, it all seemed so surreal. As if the only purpose the stars had in this world was to shine their tiny points of light down on him that evening. To give him something beautiful and breathtaking to admire. Maybe that was their only purpose. Maybe trying to get more out of them, trying to travel among them and shed light on things that were better left unexposed, had been the trouble all along. — John A. Ashley

In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over - a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. — Jack London

Greatness can never be over because you can lay it down for a minute. — Timbaland

Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, "Now I lay me down to sleep." But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor
which is simply another name for a sense of the fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her that simple little prayer, sacred to the white-robed childhood lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who knew and cared nothing about God's love, since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love. — L.M. Montgomery

purple threaded evening. a torn goddess laying on the roof. milk sky. lavender hued moan against hot asphalt. the thickness of evening presses into your throat. polaroids taped to the ceiling. ivy pouring out of the cracks in the wall. i found my courage buried beneath molding books and forgot to lock the door behind me. the old house never forgets. opened my mouth and a dandelion fell out. reached behind my wisdom teeth and found sopping wet seeds. pulled all of my teeth out just to say i could. he drowned himself in a pill bottle and the orange really brought out his demise. lay me down on a bed of ground spices. there's a song there, i know it. amethyst geode eyes. cracked open. no one saw it coming.
october never loved you.
the moon still doesn't understand that. — Taylor Rhodes

I made a proposal to Peepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, that he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed again. To this he submitted with the best grace possible, staring at me during the whole operation as if he never had been, and never could again be, so astonished in his life - looking very miserable also, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep as soon as it was over. At first I was in two minds about taking such a liberty, but I soon reflected that nobody in the house was likely to notice it. — Charles Dickens

I've never given much thought to grants but now that LeRoi Jones has a Guggenheim I have to consider the possibility of a new era, for good or ill. So if you're sitting down there on a bundle of loose cash I'd appreciate any and all advice as to how I might lay my hands on some of it.
- in a letter to Richard Scowcroft dated 5/13/1965 — Hunter S. Thompson

I don't have time for their judgement and their stupidity and you know they lay down with their ugly wives in front of their ugly children and look at their loser lives and then they look at me and they say, 'I can't process it' well, no, you never will stop trying, just sit back and enjoy the show. You know? — Charlie Sheen

They couldn't talk. They were not good talkers, either of them. And once, long ago now, she had bought a notebook for a course. It lay empty and forgotten on the kitchen table until one afternoon, when she had gone out to the shops and he was worried that she would be killed by a bus or by lightning, he opened the notebook and he wrote lines about how he loved her, the way he loved her, about his fucking heart and crap like that, about his body brimful and his scrambled head. All that. She came back from the shops. He left the notebook where it was, and he didn't mention it. And it wasn't until about a week later that he noticed it again, and he flicked it open, and he saw his lines followed by lines from her. She'd written words that she had never said. He sat down. He read them over and over for a long time. Then he wrote a paragraph for her to find. — Keith Ridgway