Never So Few Quotes & Sayings

You haven't seen my resume," Gary objected. "I'm not looking to charity."
The silver eyes glinted, a brief, hard humor. "I had your formula inside my body, Gary. That was all the proof of your genius I needed. The society had access to that blood for some time before you did, but none of them were able to come up with anything that worked on us."
"Great,I get that dubious pleasure. Someday you're going to introduce me to one of your friends and you can say, 'By the way,this is the one who invented the poision that is killing our people.'"
Gregori did laugh then,a low, husky sound so pure, it was beautiful to hear. It brought a lightness into gary's heart, dispelling the gloom that had been gathering. "I never thought of that. We might get a few interesting reactions."
Gary found himself grinning sheepishly. "Yeah,like a lynching party with me as the guest of honor. — Christine Feehan

Well, I do expect a lot of myself. I'm a harsh critic because I know what I'm capable of. I have hit those occasional peaks amongst the valleys, but the peaks are so few-things like genuine flashes of virtuoso brush inking, like I've never executed before or since-I can count on one hand the number of jobs where I've been able to hit that mark. The same with penciling. Sometimes it just flows, but more often than not, it's pure physical and spiritual torment just to get something decent on paper. I often get very discouraged with the whole creative process. — Dave Stevens

Okay, let's recap.
So I lost a few good things, but wait;
There's other fish in the sea.
And my heart's still here: the bait.
It has a few cracks
And a couple of shark bites,
But it's alright.
A bleeding heart is never one to wait in the water for long.
I wonder what my next catch will be.. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Few things in nature can compare to the long, mournful wail of a loon echoing across water and through the forest. It's an evocative sound that will stick with you for the rest of your life and make you nostalgic for things that never even happened to you. Eerie, yet beautiful, the sound will conjure up images of solitude near mountain lakes and ponds, shrouded in fog during the early morning or late dusk, surrounded by the silhouettes of pine trees. It's a sound that relaxes and submerges you into the tranquility of nature. I don't think there is another sound in the world that reminds me of the wilderness more so than the wail of a loon. — Kyle Rohrig

I was ten years old. I had noticed something was weird earlier in the day but I knew from commercials that one's menstrual period was a blue liquid that you poured like laundry detergent onto maxi pads to test their absorbency. This wasn't blue so ... I ignored it for a few hours.
When we got home I pulled my mom aside to ask if it was weird I was bleeding in my underpants. She was very sympathetic but also a little baffled. Her eyes said "Dummy didn't you read 'How Shall I Tell My Daughter ". I HAD read it but nowhere in the pamphlet did anyone say that your period was NOT a blue liquid.
At that moment two things became clear to me I was now technically a woman and I would never be a doctor. — Tina Fey

I never see you now,' she said. 'I never seem to see anyone I like. I don't know why.'
But she spoke as though it were a matter of weeks rather than of years; as though, too, before our parting we had been firm friends. It was dead contrary to the common experience of such encounters, when time is found to have built its own defensive lines, camouflaged vulnerable points, and laid a field of mines across all but a few well-trodden paths, so that, more often than not, we can only signal to one another from either side of the tangle of wire. — Evelyn Waugh

Assimilated by the deceit of its divine origin, its tenets are reward for obedience, punishment for transgression, both holding good for all time (this world and another). This moral code is a dramatised burlesque of the conceptive faculty, but is never so perfect or simple in that it allows latitude for change in any sense, so becomes dissociated from evolution, etc; and this divorce loses any utility and of necessity for its own preservation and the sympathy desired, evolves contradictions or a complication to give relationship. Transgressing its commandments, dishonesty shows us its iniquity, for our justification; or simultaneously we create an excuse or reason for the sin by a distortion of the moral code, that allows some incongruity. (Usually retaing a few unforgiveable sins- and an unwritten law.) — Austin Osman Spare

Before becoming a mom, I never knew how good I had it to just spend time at a spa for a few hours. Now, those days are far and between. So when I have an hour, it's all about the mani and pedi. — Tia Mowry

Listening is an essential part of praying. Answers from the Lord come quietly - ever so quietly. In fact, few hear his answers audibly with their ears. We must be listening so carefully or we will never recognize them. Most answers from the Lord are felt in our heart as a warm comfortable expression, or they may come as thoughts to our mind. They come to those who are prepared and who are patient. — H. Burke Peterson

When I talk to a few thousand people, I just feel I am talking to an old friend. Like that. I never felt some kind of distance, so therefore, I feel one source of happiness. In that kind of atmosphere, my experience seems some benefit to some people. — Dalai Lama

To be honest, I find most politicians very untrustworthy. When I listen to them talking - or rather, lying - I just feel there are very few politicians with integrity, so I never know who to bat for. — Jamie Sives

Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned and a tire pump belonged to the last man who had picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few were born in them. The theory of the Anglo Saxon home became so warped that it never quite recovered. — John Steinbeck

They don't, in some people; those unlucky enough never to change in themselves, but there are few like that." She gave my folded hand a squeeze and patted it. "I doubt that you're one of those. Your hand shows quite a lot of change already, for one so young. That would likely be the War, of course," she said, as though to herself. I was curious again, and opened my palm voluntarily. "What am I, then, according to my hand?" Mrs. Graham frowned, but did not pick up my hand again. "I canna just say. It's odd, for most hands have a likeness to them. Mind, I'd no just say that it's 'see one, you've seen them all,' but it's often like that - there are patterns, you know." She smiled suddenly, an oddly engaging grin, displaying very white and patently false teeth. — Diana Gabaldon

They stood in silence for a few moments with Ryan watching him carefully. He was fiddling with his t-shirt and scuffing his sneaker against the floor as he appeared to turn something over in his mind. His expression went through a variety of metamorphoses before he finally sighed and shook his head.
"Y'know, I'm not a big expert on this stuff. I've never even been in a real relationship and I'm twenty-five, but like..." He trailed off for a minute, bit his lip and then shrugged before pressing on. "But I saw the way both of you guys were at the start of this whole thing, and if you two could have that kind of intense fire stuff considering the way you both were... I dunno, I wouldn't give up so easy. But then again, maybe I read too much fanfic. — Santino Hassell

What's going on outside, Ravic?" "Nothing new, Kate. The world goes on eagerly preparing for suicide and at the same time deluding itself about what it's doing." "Will there be war?" "Everyone knows that there will be war. What one does not yet know is when. Everyone expects a miracle." Ravic smiled. "Never before have I seen so many politicians who believe in miracles as at present in France and England. And never so few as in Germany." She remained lying silent for a while. "To think that it should be possible - " she said then. "Yes - it seems so impossible that it will happen some day. Just because one considers it so impossible and doesn't protect oneself against it. — Erich Maria Remarque

A career high was when I did a cover for 'W Magazine's July issue with Steven Meisel. So few girls shoot with Meisel in their career, and a lot of people had told me I would never achieve that, so it was a dream come true. — Joan Smalls

In water so fine, a few minutes of bad memory all but disappear downstream, washed away by ten thousand belly busters, a million cannonballs. Paradise was never heaven-high when I was a boy but waist-deep, an oasis of cutoff blue jeans and raggedy Converse sneakers, sweating bottles of Nehi Grape and Orange Crush, and this stream. I remember the antidote of icy water against my blistered skin, and the taste of mushy tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, unwrapped from twice-used aluminum foil. I saw my first water moccasin here, and my first real girl, and being a child of the foot washers I have sometimes wondered if this was my Eden, and my serpent. If it was, I didn't hold out any longer than that first poor fool did. — Rick Bragg

When her touch feels like this is the way perfect should be.
When her heart beats so peacefully next to mine.
When we intertwine our fingers and pretend like we're never going to be apart and it feels like everything is right with the world.
When every moment I spend with her, feels like I'm falling in love all over again.
We might never find forever, or a happily-ever-after. Not with the things I now know. But for those few moments, we can pretend that we have it all.
But that's the thing about moments.
No matter how hard you try to hold on -
They always end. — Kady Hunt

So, while I gave up the notions of publishing at that time, I never stopped editing and refining that book. A few years later, in 1987, I thought I had it ready to go out again. — R.A. Salvatore

Listen: this story's one you ought to know,
You'll reap the consequence of what you sow.
This fleeting world is not the world where we
Are destined to abide eternally:
And for the sake of an unworthy throne
You let the devil claim you for his own.
I've few days left here, I've no heart for war,
I cannot strive and struggle any more,
But hear an old man's words: the heart that's freed
From gnawing passion and ambitious greed
Looks on kings' treasures and the dust as one;
The man who sells his brother, as you've done,
For this same worthless dust, will never be
Regarded as a child of purity.
The world has seen so many men like you,
And laid them low: there's nothing you can do
But turn to God; take thought then for the way
You travel, since it leads to Judgment Day — Abolqasem Ferdowsi

Let me tell you girls a story, short and sweet. In high school, I was a junior varsity cheerleader dating a senior who was up for football scholarships. I'd slept with him several times willingly. One night I wasn't in the mood, but he was. So he held me down and forced me. The few people I told about it - including my best friend - pointed out what would happen to him if I told. They stressed the fact that I hadn't been a virgin, that we were dating, that we'd had sex before. So I kept quiet. I never even told my mother. That boy put bruises on my body. I was crying and begging him to stop and he didn't. That's called rape, ladies. — Tammara Webber

It was so beautiful to know that I would go on forever, and so terrible to know that the part of me that fought through the pain of existence as Cadence Drake would never be only Cadence Drake beyond the few brief, flickering instants that my fragile fleshself survived. I would be absorbed into the greater whole and would cease to exist. — Holly Lisle

The last song I recorded with [Hank Williams, Sr.] was "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." I remember thinking, "Hoss, you're not just jivin'," because he was so weak that all he could do was sing a few lines and then just fall in the chair. — Chet Atkins

I have five flashlights and each performs its own trick. I have a raincoat with zippers and net material so I never get too hot in a downpour. I have a shelf crammed with books and a shortwave that speaks Arabic, Japanese, Dutch and Russian. They have mud huts with maybe a few chairs and faded pages of old magazines fastened to the wall. I ride my twenty-one speed Peace Corps-issue bike to Ferke not to save a dollar on transport but for the luxury of exercise. They ride in from their settlements on cranky old mopeds or bikes with a single cog because it's the only option. And they give me charity. I just stare at it - near tears. To refuse their offer would be pure insult. So I do the rounds again shaking hands with all the men in boubous saying over and over "An y che " Thank you. — Sarah Erdman

Slow down, and enjoy that stuff if it's possible. Kathy doesn't care what time I leave, only what time I clock out, and she knows sometimes I sleep here when I'm locked out, or have friends over. Everything's cool as long as I clock out on time."
She swallowed that big bite she'd rammed in, and said, "Okay. Jeez, I'm so hungry, this stuff is good."
Ketchup for your fries, miss? I can recommend it - it's my main source of vitamin C."
She smiled. "Sure. What does Kathy do if you clock out late?"
Well, a couple times I've fallen asleep and done it, and gotten off with a warning. Eventually, though, if I made a habit of it, I'd disappear in the middle of the night, and never be seen again, and the only clues the police would have would be a few orange hairs and some enormous shoe prints. But for a few weeks afterward, all over the country, the Quarter Pounders would taste just a little bit more like Lightsburg, Ohio. — John Barnes

I never liked apples. In fact, when I was a little girl, my mom wanted to give me apples in my lunch box and I would ask for green peppers. So bizarre ... It's funny - I don't have an apple a day, but I can say that I have a few a week. — Lana Parrilla

according to a brief perusal of women writer's comments online over the past few days, men are: overly confident, predatory, helpless, psychopaths, terrified of women, fascists, the reason why the world is in this mess, literally so stupid, and the problem here. Of course what these women really mean is that they themselves are not overly confident, not predatory, not helpless, and on down the line. It's just easier to say that men are these things, than that you are not these things. People would rightly become suspicious if you suddenly started going on about how amazing you were. They'd start looking for proof you weren't. But by attributing these negative behaviors and traits to your "opposite" group, it's an easy, criticism-proof way of saying, "I would never behave like this, I would never be like this." And — Jessa Crispin

Trout supposed that when the atmosphere became poisonous, Bill would keel over a few minutes before Trout did. He would kid Bill about that. "How's the old respiration, Bill?" he'd say, or, "Seems like you've got a touch of the old emphysema, Bill," or, "We never discussed what kind of a funeral you want, Bill. You never even told me what your religion is." And so on. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

You never know when you might come home and find Mam sitting by the fire chatting with a woman and a child, strangers. Always a woman and child. Mam finds them wandering the streets and if they ask, Could you spare a few pennies, miss? her heart breaks. She never has money so she invites them home for tea and a bit of fried bread and if it's a bad night she'll let them sleep by the fire on a pile of rags in the corner. The bread she gives them always means less for us and if we complain she says there are always people worse off and we can surely spare a little from what we have. — Frank McCourt

Dagmar, really. Annwyl has always been crazy. All you've been doing the last few years is muffling it. You've never shut it off. Not completely."
"And did Annwyl just threaten me? Me?"
"She threatens me and Briec all the time. I wouldn't take it too personally."
"That, in no way, makes me feel better!" She stopped in front of him, stamping her foot. "Why are you being so bloody calm about this? Annwyl took out that woman's eyes."
"I'm sure she took them only after she took her head. You know Annwyl does her dismembering in a very orderly way. — G.A. Aiken

Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness
if you had little time left to live
you would waste precious little of it! Well, I'm telling you ... you do have a terminal illness: It's called birth. You don't have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason
or you will never be at all. — Dan Millman

Few of us have been so exceptionally unfortunate as not to find, in our own age, some experienced friend who has helped us by precious counsel, never to be forgotten. We cannot render it in kind, but perhaps in the fulness of time it may become our noblest duty to aid another as we have ourselves been aided, and to transmit to him an invaluable treasure, the tradition of the intellectual life. — Philip Gilbert Hamerton

It was never meant to be this way. All other dreams were meant to be subservient to God's dream. Yet in the pursuit of my "essential" dream, I have been slowly building my own personal tower to my own personal heaven. It has me. It defines me. It motivates me. It guides and directs me. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning and a reason to press on. Every day I get out my mortar and trowel and put another few courses of bricks on my personal tower to the sky. I'm still going to church, and I haven't forsaken the faith, but in a profound and practical way, God is out of the picture. I am not in a place of overt rebellion to him, yet I am not serving him. I don't have time for the Lord because all of my daily time and energy is invested in my dream. I was given the capacity to imagine so that everyday my "eyes" would be filled with him, yet now another dream — Paul David Tripp

A few other couples joined us on the dance floor and we lost ourselves among them. I'd never been able to figure out exactly what was involved in slow dancing, so I contented myself, as I had since high school, with gripping my partner to me, letting out awkward breaths against her ear, and tipping from foot to foot like someone waiting for a bus. I could feel the sweat cooling on her forearms and smell a trace of apples in her hair. — Michael Chabon

You don't sound too excited about this," Tucker comments twenty minutes later. He holds the door to the community center open for me.

"And you are?" A yellow sign decorated with balloons greets us. "This process is so hard that I have to learn how to breathe? That's not normal."

"You watch any of those YouTube videos?"

"God no. I didn't want to psych myself out. Did you?"

"A few."

"And?"

He gives me a thumbs-down. "I don't recommend them. I'm wondering why we use brass balls to describe someone who's really strong, because after the second video, my balls tried to climb inside my body. Plus, my YouTube history is officially fucked."

"Ha. Exactly why I didn't watch any." I wag a warning finger at him. "Stay by my head during the birth or you'll never want to have sex with me again. — Elle Kennedy

[Lord Horror] was so unique and radical, I expected to go to prison for it. I always thought that if you wrote a truly dangerous book -- something dangerous would happen to you. Which is one reason there are so few really dangerous books around. Publishers play at promoting dangerous books, whether they're Serpent's Tail or Penguin. All you get is a book vetted by committee, never anything radically imaginative or offensive that will take your fucking head off. Ironically, I think it would do other authors a power of good if they had to account for their books by going to prison -- there are far too many bad books being published! — David Britton

You are not a one dimensional human being. You are not your social media etiquette, a picture, a few things said under stress or through misunderstanding. You are much more. You are a fearless and wonderful soul who loves greatly. The people that matter are the ones that see all the dimensions of your soul, not just the superficial. They will climb inside that box with you not because they are not sure if they will ever find your uniqueness in another person. They do so because they feel safe enough to share their uniqueness with you. They see your faults and know that they have them also. They feel the walls lowered and the freedom of being themselves. Honesty is never guarded or regretted. That is what makes that box home. — Shannon L. Alder

Never have so many given so much for so long for so little for so few for so seldom. — Neil Simon

Why do you continue your... charade? Your current position would seem to be a good one for revealing the truth'.
'A few people know, sir. Bobby, Jane, some of the Leatherbacks. For the rest... it just seems easier to keep things as they are.' Winter thought of Novus and his tirade. 'It would be one thing if I had just joined up, but it's been so long. People might be upset that they'd been fooled. And...'
Janus raised an eyebrow. Winter hesitated.
'It's all right for the Girl's Own,' she said. 'They joined up because Vordan needs them, and when the war's over they'll go home. I... I haven't anywhere to go.' She tugged the collar of her uniform. 'This is who I am now, for better or worse. This is my home. After the war, maybe it will be all right for a woman to keep this on, but... maybe not.'
Winter found her throat getting thick. She'd never put it that way before, never even thought it so bluntly. This is my home. — Django Wexler

I kept thinking about the uneven quality of time--the way it was almost always so empty, and then with no warning came a few days that felt so dense and alive and real that it seemed indisputable that that was what life was, that its real nature had finally been revealed. But then time passed and unthinkably grew dead again, and it turned out that that fullness had been an aberration and might never come back. — Elif Batuman

When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park we saw a few daffodils close to the waterside. But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a county turnpike toad. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew about the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake. — Dorothy Wordsworth

At that moment, I knew she was the girl for me. Of course, we'd already been going out for a few weeks, so I wasn't, like, shocked or anything. But still, it's never not nice to to keep realizing. — Rob Sheffield

Czar Nicholas the Second was overthrown by Lenin in 1917."
I blink in surprise. "Yes," I say, "he was."
"And do you think I want to know that? IT's not even on your exam syllabus. I never had to know that. So now it's your turn to pick up a few pairs of shoes and make ooh and aah sounds for me becuase Jo ate prawns and she's allergic and she got sick and couldn't come and I'm not sitting on a bus on my own for five hours, OK?"
Nat takes a deep breath and I look at my hands in shame. I am a selfish, selfish person. I am also a very sparkly person; my hands are covered in gold glitter. — Holly Smale

Why me?' he said. 'That's how all men answer. And all men have a knot on their shoes, something they don't know how to do; an inability that binds them to others. Society depends on this asymmetry between people these days: a dovetailing of skills and competence. But the Flood? If the Flood came and one needed a Noah? Not so much a just man as a man able to bring along the few things it would take to start again. You see, you don't know how to tie your shoes, somebody else doesn't know how to plane wood, someone else again has never read Tolstoy, someone else doesn't know how to sow grain and so on. I've been looking for him for years, and, believe me, it's hard, really hard; it seems people have to hold each other by the hand like the blind man and the lame who can't go anywhere without each other, but argue just the same. It means if the Flood comes we'll all die together. — Italo Calvino

All wars are sacred,to those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn't make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles and drums and the fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is 'save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!' Sometimes it's 'down with Popery!' and sometimes 'Liberty!' and sometimes 'Cotton, Slavery and States' Rights! — Margaret Mitchell

A little-known fact: Next to nothing is impossible. Actually, nothing itself is impossible. Nothing is the absence of all things. But that absence is, itself, a thing, and - well, the logic's so screwy you could uncork a wine bottle with it.
The point is, most of the stuff people say is impossible is not at all impossible. Starting a car that's already started, that's im- possible. Traveling to where you are is impossible. Sleeping through Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" is impossible (and so is listening to it).
And that's the list. Taking a neon-blue dump? Well... You'd think, but really it's just improbable.
To sum up a wildly unmanageable concept: most things we call impossible are actually just things that require more effort than we're willing to give. And even when it comes to impossible, it's really only the Rick Astley that nobody will try if they're given a few slices of pizza. — Daniel Younger

He wasn't so elderly after all, I saw: probably just a few years older than I. And yet I was never able (and am still not) to think of myself as old. I talked as if I knew I was; I bemoaned my age. But it was only for comedy, or to make other people feel young. — Hanya Yanagihara

In the summer of 2012 - and we do as we do when we get together to brainstorm an idea - we were both probably eating grilled cheese and watching 'Oprah's Favorite Things,' so it will never end, and we both brought a few things to the table of what we wanted our next project to be. And Jessica said, 'What if we raised a baby together?' — Lennon Parham

Hey, comrade," Dima said, tone, choice of words, everything exactly as it would have been in the eighties, in that forsaken country.
Vadim peered at him in the mirror. "Yes?"
"Are you guys in trouble?" Dima moved closer, stood within touching distance. "I don't mean your little crusade a while back. I mean the rest."
Vadim inhaled and lowered his gaze for a few moments. "Life isn't easy, Dima. That's our set of rules."
"You know you can change them. If he's fucking around ... ."
"So am I."
"But you're not happy with it?"
"It's just sex, Dima."
Dima looked at him for a long time. "It's never just sex for you, though. Am I wrong?"
"No. You're right." Vadim shook his head. "Rules, Dima. We're a different case."
Dima reached out and took him by the shoulders, pulling him up and back against him, which made Vadim look at himself in the mirror.
"It's not easy. I wish it was. — Aleksandr Voinov

You marvel that this matter, shuffled pell-mell at the whim of Chance, could have made a man, seeing that so much was needed for the construction of his being. But you must realize that a hundred million time this matter, on the way to human shape, has been stopped to form now a stone, now lead, now coral, now a flower, now a comet; and all because of more or fewer elements that were or were not necessary for designing a man. Little wonder if, within an infinite quantity of matter that ceaselessly changes and stirs, the few animals, vegetables, and minerals we see should happen to be made; no more wonder than getting a royal pair in a hundred casts of the dice. Indeed it is equally impossible for all this stirring not to lead to something; and yet this something will always be wondered at by some blockhead who will never realize how small a change would have made it into something else. — Cyrano De Bergerac

Embrace it. Live it. Life's too short. Even looking at it from my end, when I've had more chances than many, I wish
actually even more so now
that I could go back and tinker with a few things ... do a little more of this, a little less of that. But the things about which I feel no regret are those that I did with passion. Those things I remember in living colour. The good and the bad. The rest have faded to black and white. They don't matter. Maybe they never did. — Ella J. Fraser

- pity is a confoundedly two-edged business. Anyone who doesn't know how to deal with it should keep his hands, and, above all, his heart, off it. It is only at first that pity, like morphia, is a solace to the invalid, a remedy, a drug, but unless you know the correct dosage and when to stop, it becomes a virulent poison. The first few injections do good, they soothe, they deaden the pain. But the devil of it is that the organism, the body, just like the soul, has an uncanny capacity for adaptation. Just as the nervous system cries out for more and more morphia, so do the emotions cry out for more and more pity, in the end more than one can give. Inevitably there comes a moment when one has to say 'No', and then one must not mind the other person's hating one more for this ultimate refusal than if one had never helped him at all. — Stefan Zweig

(Never in the field of human conflict has) So much been owed by So many to So few. If you want a classic ascending tricolon, then try his peerless line from 1942, after the victory at El Alamein. Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. When he uncorks this one at the — Boris Johnson

No doubt your sword is indeed a beautiful thing. It is a tribute to whoever forged it in bygone ages. There are very few such swords as this one left in the world, but remember, it is only a sword, Matthias! It contains no secret spell, nor holds within its blade any magical power. This sword is made for only one purpose, to kill. It will only be as good or evil as the one who wields it. I know that you intend to use it only for the good of your Abbey, Matthias; do so, but never allow yourself to be tempted into using it in a careless or idle way. It would inevitably cost you your life, or that of your dear ones. Martin the Warrior used the sword only for right and good. This is why it has become a symbol of power to Redwall. Knowledge is gained through wisdom, my friend. Use the sword wisely. — Brian Jacques

We listen to rap lyrics, but few study the history. One of the most significant contributions of hip hop. It offers a profound social commentary on the black experience. This is an aspect of the music that is overlooked because most people choose to pay more attention to "the hook" (the catchy repetitive phrase) than the complete body of work. In doing so, the listener misses the message: the essence of the music, the breakdown of the bars. That's tantamount to someone who is able to quote scripture, but has never read the bible. — Carlos Wallace

I could never be a politician. But as uncomfortable as I would be doing so, I have no problem with Obama's long-planned 'change of heart.' This dude's made huge, measurable strides for gay rights, and if being coy about his plans for gay marriage for a few years was needed to get him elected, then so be it. LGBT persons will be better off, and federal same-sex marriage recognition will come sooner because of it. — Barack Obama

Never! Never, Marge. I can't live the button-down life like you. I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles. Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with my cocky stride and musky odors -- oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called 'City Fathers' who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson? — Matt Groening

My sheets had never been so clean as they had in the past few months. I hardly got them on again before something else happened and I was feverishly ripping them off and stuffing them in the wash with double amounts of soap and all the "extra" buttons pushed: extra wash, extra rinse, extra water, extra spin, extra protection against things that go bump in the night. — Robin McKinley

Nick watched her intently as he tried to sort through the anarchy of his thoughts. His usual appetite had vanished after their walk this morning. He had not eaten breakfast ... had not done anything, really, except to wander around the estate in a sort of daze that appalled him. He knew himself to be a callous man, one with no honor, and no means of quelling his own brutish instincts. So much of his life had been occupied with basic survival that he had never been free to follow higher pursuits. He had little acquaintance with literature or history, and his mathematical abilities were limited to matters of money and betting odds. Philosophy, to him, was a handful of cynical principles learned through experience with the worst of humanity. By now, nothing could surprise or intimidate him. He didn't fear loss, pain, or even death.
But with a few words and one awkward, innocent kiss, Charlotte Howard had devastated him. — Lisa Kleypas

I know vaudeville isn't supposed to be art. It's supposed to be entertainment, which is different. But I think art ... I think it's making something from nothing, basically. It's taking something as simple as movement, or a few notes, or steps, or words, and putting them all together so that they're bigger than what they ever could have been separate. They're transformed. And just witnessing that transformation changes you. It reaches into your insides and moves things around. It's magic, of a sort.
I never really knew that until I saw your act. But when you walked out on that stage, I knew I was seeing something ... different. Something maybe more amazing than what the professor and Silenus had done. You were making something up there, out of just the simplest elements possible, and seeing it changed something in me. I'd never encountered anything like that. — Robert Jackson Bennett

I am remembering so clearly how he looked when he was eight, when he was eleven, when he was seventeen. Sawyer and I were only together for a few months before he left, but he was my golden boy for so long before that he would have taken the guts of me with him even if we'd never been a couple at all. — Katie Cotugno

A short, glorious life in service of a greater good - say, the life of the Spartans at Thermopylae, or the pilots in the Battle of Britain, of whom Winston Churchill said 'Never have so many owed so much to so few,' - that is worth praising. But for glory alone? I think not. — Tim O'Reilly

Baseball is a sport where being stupid and keeping things really simple a lot of times is the right way to do things. There are very few guys that are capable of processing a lot of information and applying it and still being good at it. ... I don't want to name names, but there were guys I played with that were so stupid that they're really good, because their mind never gets in the way. — Zack Greinke

Was a book by Arthur Raistrick called Quakers in Science and Industry and I glanced through it for a few minutes, then carried it to a nearby chair and sat reading for about half an hour, so unexpectedly absorbed did I become. I hadn't realized it, but Quakers in the Darbys' day were a bullied and downtrodden minority in Britain. Excluded from conventional pursuits like politics and academia, they became big in industry and commerce, particularly, for some reason, in banking and the manufacture of chocolate. The Barclays and Lloyds banking families and the Cadburys, Frys, and Rowntrees of chocolate renown were all Quakers. They and many others made Britain a more dynamic and wealthy place entirely as a consequence of being treated shabbily by it. It had never occurred to me to be unkind to a Quaker, but if that's what it takes to get the country back on its feet again, I am prepared to consider it. - — Bill Bryson

Aurora once told me that she knew I was different within the first few months after I was born, because as a baby, I never cried. She had no way of knowing if I was hungry or if my stomach hurt until I was old enough to point and talk. Even when I fell and it was obvious that I had hurt myself, I did not cry. When I didn't get my way, I would go off by myself and sulk or have a tantrum. But I never cried. Later, when I was eleven and Abba died, I didn't cry. When Joseph, my best friend at St. Elizabeth's, died, I didn't cry. Maybe I don't feel what others feel. I have no way of knowing. But I do feel. It's just that what I feel does not elicit tears. What I feel when others cry is more like a dry, empty aloneness, like I'm the only person left in the world.
So it is very strange to feel my eyes well with tears as I read Jasmine's list. — Francisco X Stork

I had a few pimples here and there when I was 14. Never had braces though, thank God. A girl in my class had, like, the big helmet of head gear. I felt so bad for her. People always made fun of me enough because of my name. — River Viiperi

I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be amazed by me, and to confess to yourself that you had never even dreamed of such transports ... When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them. — Gustave Flaubert

We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it. — Eric Hoffer

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular. — Tony Robbins

No, they'll dance with you and then say I am justly called mysterious," he said.
"You are odious."
"Quite so, but admit you've never danced better than these last few moments when you were too angry to think about it. — Caroline Stevermer

The man of frank and strong prejudices, far from being a political and social menace and an obstacle in the path of progress, is often a benign character and helpful citizen. The chance is far greater, furthermore, that he will be more creative than the man who can never come to more than a few gingerly held conclusions, or who thinks that all ideas should be received with equal hospitality. There is such a thing as being so broad you are flat. — Richard M. Weaver

As Nietzsche wrote, "The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it - what it costs us." Perhaps you will attain your goal, and a worthy goal at that, but at what price? Apply this standard to everything, including whether to collaborate with other people or come to their aid. In the end, life is short, opportunities are few, and you have only so much energy to draw on. And in this sense time is as important a consideration as any other. Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others - that is too high a price to pay. Power — Robert Greene

Few understand that horses are never truly domesticated. Their instincts are always there and readily take over once they are free. They stay or return to us by their choice, not the compulsion forced upon them.
Once realized you must also recognize only kindness will prevail to make a partner of an animal who'd prefer only the company of his kind and the freedom of wide open spaces. Any other relationship is based on the inadequacies of the tormentor on the tormented. One will lose. It's always the horse, for even if he wins his defensive battle the mark of rogue will remain.
It's been witnessed how a mustang will give up his life if his freedom can't be regained when in the grip of adversity. There's so much for us to learn from this, if we'd only learn to listen to their message. — Judith-Victoria Douglas

the desire to wring out a few more drips of happiness almost always destroyed the happiness you were so lucky to have, and so foolish never to acknowledge. — Jonathan Safran Foer

He always had some experiment or another on the go, usually involving boiling liquids and unpleasant smells. Always something bubbling in the cauldron or cooking in the small stone oven. One wall was hidden behind rows of metal cages, set one upon the other; containing animals and birds and reptiles and a few other things not so easily identified. Because you never knew when you'd need a subject to try something out on. And of course there were shelves and shelves of glass jars, holding herbs and insect parts, mandrake root and other disturbing things. Some of the things in the jars were still moving. Because alchemy's like that. — Simon R. Green

So many people com einto our lives and then leave the way they came. But there are those precious few who touch our hearts so deeply we will never be the same. — Mary Engelbreit

What then, is it not possible to be free from faults? It is not possible; but this is possible: to direct your efforts incessantly to being faultess. For we must be content if by never remitting this attention we shall escape at least a few errors. When you have said "Tomorrow I will begin to attend," you must be told that you are saying this: "Today I will be shameless, disregardful of time and place, mean;it will be in the power of others to give me pain, today I will be passionate and envious.
See how many evil things you are permitting yourself to do. If it is good to use attention tomorrow, how much better is it to do so today? If tomorrow it is in your interest to attend, much more is it today, that you may be able to do so tomorrow also, and may not defer it again to the third day. — Epictetus

A few years after you disappeared, a postal worker named Ben Carver was sentenced to death for murdering six young men. (He is a homosexual, which, according to Huckleberry, means he is not attracted to murdering young women.) Rumors have it that Carver cannibalized some of his victims, but there was never a trial, so the more salacious details were not made public. I found Carver's name in the sheriff's file ten months ago, the fifth anniversary of your disappearance. The letter was written on Georgia Department of Corrections stationery and signed by the warden. He was informing the sheriff that Ben Carver, a death row inmate, had mentioned to one of the prison guards that he might have some information pertaining to your disappearance. — Karin Slaughter

Ambition had never troubled me, so I decided to begin by watching life at my leisure for a few years, waiting until I finally felt tempted to find some circle of influence for myself. — Stefan Zweig

Part of my interest was zoological. I's never seen a creature with so many freckles before. A Big Bang had occurred, originating at the bridge of her nose, and the force of this explosion had sent galaxies hurtling and drifting every end of her curved, warm-blooded universe. There were clusters of freckles on her forearms and wrists, an entire Milky Way spreading across her forehead, even a few sputtering quasars flung into the wormholes of her ears. — Jeffrey Eugenides

One of the realities of life is that few things of value ever come easy. A great marriage takes years of hard work - every day. There is never a time when I can say that I no longer need to work on being patient, tender, and conversant. I believe that marriage is forever, which means that you work through your problems and learn how to relate to each other no matter what it takes. Hog Hole marriages require daily effort and sacrifice. So do Hog Hole careers, friendships, children, and churches. It's never easy; few things of value ever are. A Hog Hole life is available to every person, but it takes determination, sacrifice, and work. In a word, discipline. — Bob Merritt

He had been hurt doing everything he had ever done. He expected it, even wanted it. Nothing centered a man like pain. Nothing drove the irrelevant bullshit our of your mind like the taste of your own blood. Duffy always wanted to tell people who were worried about the future of their children, or about God and the order of the universe, to go out and break a rib or two. A few broken ribs threw all thoughts of children, God and the order of the universe right out the window. Nobody with broken ribs ever had free-floating anxiety, or so Duffy was convinced. It was cheaper that a psychiatrist and never so humiliating. — Harry Crews

Today You Soar
Like the grand eagle, you spread your wings
And put forth the effort to do great things.
Looking skyward you dared to challenge the wind,
Harnessing power to help you ascend.
With an eye on the goal, fixed in flight,
You climbed to an impressive height.
Undaunted by gusts and unkind gails,
You never gave up and would not fail.
So now you've reached where few even try
As the eagle high in a glorious sky.
Not superior, but grand.
Not proud, but sure.
Not a cub, wolf, or bear but an eagle pure.
Today you soar. — Richelle E. Goodrich

A proper sense of proportion leaves no room for superstition. A man says, "I have never been in a shipwreck," and becoming nervous touches wood. Why is he nervous? He has this paragraph before his eyes: "Among the deceased was Mr. - . By a remarkable coincidence this gentleman had been saying only a few days before that he had never been in a shipwreck. Little did he think that his next voyage would falsify his words so tragically." It occurs to him that he has read paragraphs like that again and again. Perhaps he has. Certainly he has never read a paragraph like this: "Among the deceased was Mr. - . By a remarkable coincidence this gentleman had never made the remark that he had not yet been in a shipwreck." Yet that paragraph could have been written truthfully thousands of times. — A.A. Milne

There are those who live and die giving love, without receiving any. And those who live life just taking, never giving. So the universe gives a boon to a few lucky souls: Who they love will love them back - all their lives. — Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

Being a hangman requires you to take someone else's life based on someone else's judgment, and carry it out on someone else's schedule. The job does not provide the same satisfaction that an ordinary murderer gets from smashing a skull. It robs them of the fulfillment of plunging a knife into someone's throat. In the world of capital punishment, the prisoner's crimes have been sanitized by years of sitting on death row. By then, the execution is a cold and impersonal affair. There is prayer, a noose, and a few last words. The prisoner then experiences a sudden rush of blood to the head. At the end of it all, you have a broken neck and a dead body swinging from the end of a rope. That is it. You don't get to manhandle them with your own hands. That's why the brutes you mention will never be hired. So you see, Vaida, this is not a job for a murderer. It is a job for a humanitarian. — Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

If I could, I would take you with me," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
She tried to pull away from him. "You would not. You would grow tired of me in a few weeks."
He shook his head, pulling her tight against him. "No ... I could never grow tired of you."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked.
He brushed tendrils of hair from her face. "I have craved to know you for years ... even just to hear you speak my name ... a single touch of your hand on mine ... "
He kissed her softly, his lips tasting hers. "I want you to be mine ... I want you always."
- 'unknown script' 2012 — Faye Hall

Hugs are so vital a thing that there should never be so few of them that you can count the ones you've had. — Christina Engela

I've never told anyone this, in an effort to run from my past and disguise it, I got rid of all of the scrapbooks my mother kept going back to when I was a baby. Truly. So that's why whenever talk show hosts or a producer asks for these pictures, there are barely any. My sister had a few, but that's it, and this was before digital. I've never told anyone that, but that's the truth. — Tim Gunn

We'd been fucking each other for months without touching. And the last few days had this thing between us strung so tightly it was amazing we could move.
He was going to wreck me. Break me.
And I'd never needed anything more. — Molly O'Keefe

Well, the Story Girl was right. There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way — L.M. Montgomery

The Fire Bug flared up at that. "You want to know what bugs me?" it said indignantly. "Nobodaddy's friendly about fire. Oh, it's fine in its place, people say, it makes a nice glow in a room, but keep an eye on it in case it gets out of control, and always put it out before you leave. Never mind how much it's needed; a few forests burned by wildfires, the occasional volcanic eruption, and there goes our reputation. Water, on the other hand! - hah! - there's no limit to the praise Water gets. Floods, rains, burst pipes, they make no difference. Water is everyone's favorite. And when they call it the Fountain of Life! - bah! - well, that just bugs me to bits." The Fire Bug dissolved briefly into a little cloud of angry, buzzing sparks, then came together again. "Fountain of Life, indeed," it hissed. "What an idea. Life is not a drip. Life is a flame. What do you imagine the sun is made of? Raindrops? I don't think so. Life is not wet, young man. Life burns. — Salman Rushdie

He blinked a few times, each motion so slow that he was never quite sure if he'd get his eyes open again. He wasn't wearing a shirt. Funny how he was only just realizing it. Funnier still that he couldn't seem to summon any concern for her maidenly sensibilities.
She might be blushing. He couldn't tell. It was too dark to see. But it didn't matter. This was Honoria. She was a good egg. A sensible egg. She wouldn't be scarred forever by the sight of his chest. — Julia Quinn

MY MOM SAYS IT'S TIME for me to give up now, and that what I'm doing is futile. She's upset, so her accent is thicker than usual, and every statement is a question. "You no think is time for you to give up now, Tasha? You no think that what you doing is futile?" She draws out the first syllable of futile for a second too long. My dad doesn't say anything. He's mute with anger or impotence. I'm never sure which. His frown is so deep and so complete that it's hard to imagine his face with another expression. If this were even just a few months ago, I'd be sad to see him like this, but now I don't really care. He's the reason we're all in this mess. — Nicola Yoon

Never before in human history have so few owed so much to so many, Mr. Jiabao. A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 percent - as strong, as talented, as inteligent in every way - to exist in perpetual servitude; a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man's hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse. — Aravind Adiga

On the plane leaving Tokyo I'm sitting alone in back twisting the knobs on Etch-A-Sketch and Roger is next to me singing "Over the Rainbow" straight into my ear, things changing, falling apart, fading, another year, a few more moves, a hard person who doesn't give a fuck, a boredom so monumental it humbles, arrangements so fleeting made by people you don't even know that it requires you to lose any sense of reality you might have once acquired, expectations so unreasonable you become superstitious about ever matching them. Roger offers me a joint and I take a drag and stare out the window and I relax for a moment when the lights of Tokyo, which I never realized is an island, vanish from view but this feeling only lasts a moment because Roger is telling me that other lights in other cities, in other countries, on other planets, are coming into view soon. — Bret Easton Ellis

But I still serve pretty big and that's one of my biggest weapons, so if my shoulder holds up and I can count on it, I can win a few matches and then you never know how the other guys are going to react to the fatigue and the length of the matches. — Guy Forget

A few miles away across the East River was the apartment he could never get used to, the job where he had nothing to do, the dozen or so people he knew slightly and cared about not at all: a fabric of existence as blank and seamless as the freshly plaster wall he passed. Soon his wife would return from New Jersey. Soon everyone would be back, and things would go on much as they had before. From the street outside came the sound of laughter and shouting, bottles breaking, voices droning in the warm air, and children playing far past their bedtime. It all meant nothing whatever to Lowell. Standing in the parlor of a house no longer his, listening to the voices of people whose lives were closed to him forever, contemplating a future much like his past, he realized that it was finally too late for him. Everything had gone wrong, and he had succeeded at nothing, and he was never going to have any kind of life at all. — L.J. Davis

There are so few people left alive from back then, you may as well be talking to them about the Black Death. Nobody recalls the shite in the 30s and that were fucking horrible. For Christ's sake, nobody wants to remember the shite in the 80s. It's all forgotten and swept under the rug by the newspapers and the BBC. They get nostalgic about the music, but they never want to mention the misery. It's all shite. As for the bloody Second World War, the politicians only talk about it when they need an excuse to go pissing about in one of those fucking Muslim countries. — Harry Leslie Smith

When Clark was asked about liberation from Moosburg he said, "It was a very emotional period, especially for a few of us who had been very old prisoners. We were closely bonded, so some of most wonderful friends I've ever had came out of those camps. We stayed together and helped each other. None of us feel it was a total dead loss, the experience I mean. A lot of us learned a lot about ourselves, about our limits, and we certainly learned how to get along with other people in difficult circumstances, which is a very important lesson. So I am sure that there are many people who don't share that view. But they've disappeared. They don't come to reunions. You never hear from them. I just hope they are happy too. But I doubt whether they're as happy as we are." What — Donald E. Phillips