Niles Quotes & Sayings

If new species arise very rapidly in small, peripherally isolated local populations, then the great expectation of insensibly graded fossil sequences is a chimera. A new species does not evolve in the area of its ancestors; it does not arise from the slow transformation of all its forbears.
co-author with Niles Eldridge — Stephen Jay Gould

Winston Niles Rumfoord was something else again - morally, spatially, socially, sexually, and electrically. — Kurt Vonnegut

Three days later on October 29, 1959, the Pontiac registered in the name of Niles Tignor would be discovered, gas tank near-empty, keys on the floorboards beneath the front seat, in a parking lot close by the Greyhound bus station in Rome, New York. — Joyce Carol Oates

To tell a tale so great as to tear the soul inside out
Sara Niles, Torn From the Inside Out — Sara Niles

That was a really shitty move Liam! How would you like it if I turned into an animal when we were arguing? — Abby Niles

Painful sunlight spilled into Darcy's bedroom. He groaned and buried his head beneath his pillow.

"Good morning, Master Darcy," called Niles's cheerful voice. "Nice day out; just a few clouds. Might have some rain later today. What would you like for your breakfast?"

"Darkness," Darcy growled into his pillow. "And more sleep."

Niles clicked his tongue and walked over to his master's bed. "You've got a town to rule and a castle to mope around. And it's a bright, beautiful day! — Emma Clifton

Hurry means that we gather impressions but have no experiences, that we collect acquaintances but make no friends, that we attend meetings but experience no encounter. We must recover eternity if we are to find time, and eternity is what Jesus came to restore. For without it, there can be no charity. — D.T. Niles

Paleontologists ever since Darwin have been searching (largely in vain) for the sequences of insensibly graded series of fossils that would stand as examples of the sort of wholesale transformation of species that Darwin envisioned as the natural product of the evolutionary process. Few saw any reason to demur - though it is a startling fact that ... most species remain recognizably themselves, virtually unchanged throughout their occurrence in geological sediments of various ages. — Niles Eldredge

It was nineteen fifty seven, the Little Rock nine were escorted to school by Federal troops under the order of President Eisenhower to counteract the attempt of Arkansas Governor Faubus to prevent it. Southern racial tensions produced a supreme irony: Federal troops against the National Guard. This visible strife between state and nation was one of the evidences of the racial turmoil of the times — Sara Niles

Moments passed and I continued to stare at Max's profile, his words rocking me in a good way but also wondering how rude it would be if I made out with him in front of Niles. — Kristen Ashley

Thomas was like a drug, so smooth and overwhelming that he took one up a level in their emotions just by watching him and listening to him. He was a natural entertainer, filled with talent and knowledge on many subjects and a keen sense of the arts and music. I admired him as he performed for us, and I forgot the ugliness again — Sara Niles

My childhood was one of both poverty and plenty, suffering and joy. I was taken out of poverty, both financial and emotional, and lavished with love. I was given a gift I could never repay if I lived a thousand lifetimes, it was the gift of hope and trust, given to me by my uncle who believed in me so strongly that I began to believe in myself. — Sara Niles

In America, it is reported by some sources that there were more domestic violence related murders in the home than the 58,000 Americans soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam War — Sara Niles

Quentin Crisp said, "To have style is to be yourself but on purpose. — Richard Niles

Thank you for your honesty," Niles says. The Candor repeat the phrase under their breath. All around me are the words "Thank you for your honesty" at different volumes and pitches, and my anger begins to dissolve. — Veronica Roth

The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way. — Niles Eldredge

Paleontologist Niles Eldredge, a prominent evolutionist, said: 'The doubt that has infiltrated the previous, smugly confident certitude of evolutionary biology's last twenty years has inflamed passions.' He spoke of the 'lack of total agreement even within the warring camps,' and added, 'things really are in an uproar these days ... Sometimes it seems as though there are as many variations on each [evolutionary] theme as there are individual biologists.' — Niles Eldredge

Her friend glanced between Cait and Dante.
But Cait, The Hulk has requested my absence. I believe it best if I cooperate. — Abby Niles

Darwin's prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record. — Niles Eldredge

I learned many things about human nature, but one of the greatest is the nobility inherent within us all, for one of the greatest things about being human is the ability to be humane — Sara Niles

The chief difficulty is that God demands of us that we live by faith: faith in God, God's sovereignty over the future, God's sufficiency for the present; while, on the other hand, the various other gods whom we can serve appeal to us in terms of the things which we can see and the forces which we can calculate. The choice between the life of faith and the life of sight is a choice between a God whom only faith can apprehend and gods whom one has only to see to understand. — Daniel Thambyrajah Niles

I find it a privilege and an honor to be human, for to me, one of the most wondrous and beautiful things in the universe, is found in human form.
Because to be human, is to be able to dream dreams of pyramids and skyscrapers, and majestic works of art that spring from the human mind. — Sara Niles

In the process of my evolution, I became a victim of domestic war, an emotional casualty for a major portion of my life, entwined, entrapped and emotionally involved, until I learned how to become free.
Sara Niles
Torn From the Inside Out — Sara Niles

Did you see the way he glared at me? It wasn't with daggers, Cait, it was fists. That fine piece of man-meat has staked a claim on you and he's going to pummel anyone who stands in his way, including my gay ass. My face can't handle that. After tonight, you're on your own. — Abby Niles

Well, don't tell Steve Niles but I just don't think horror works in comics. — Robert Kirkman

Caitlyn is breathtaking, one of the most gorgeous women I've had the pleasure of meeting, and I pity you for being so wrapped up in shit-talk you'd stoop to the level you just did. But you've given me all the more reason to beat your ass come September. — Abby Niles

Niles actually didn't care about me. Once he had me, he thought he had me and that was it. The world revolved around him, his wants, his preferences, his habits, and everything around him fit into that world. He didn't have to work at it, as partners always had to work at it. He didn't care enough to work at it. It was up to me to care, to fit, to revolve around him, his wants, his preferences, his habits. He didn't listen to me because what I said didn't matter. It didn't fit into his world and thus it didn't mean a single thing to him. — Kristen Ashley

Thomas was the most loving, wonderful, and attentive husband that I could ever imagine on some days, and on others it was as if I married Lucifer himself. — Sara Niles

I smelled war on the horizon, with more deaths and trouble to come
Bombing of the Twin Towers
From Rape of a Nation by Sara Niles — Sara Niles

It was difficult to find information because Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was called shell shock during W.W.II, and when Vietnam Vets were found to suffer from the same symptoms after exposure to traumatic war scenes, a study was embarked upon that ended with the new, more appropriate name in 1980. Thomas was diagnosed with P.T.S.D. shortly afterwards, before the term P.T.S.D. was common. — Sara Niles

The guy was young, in his twenties. Looked like a Roman statue with pomade in his hair. — R.A. Niles

It is not a matter of how much you train, but of how you train. - RICK NILES, TRIATHLON COACH — Joe Friel

The man she despised had his job back. Her job. Damn it to hell. She'd never be able to live with him now. — Abby Niles

Who the hell are you?" "It doesn't matter who I am. It just matters who you are. Years ago... before you were born... you were my mother." His mother? "I'm taking down your license plate and calling the police." "Kate, is everything okay?" It was Mr. Niles, their neighbor, still in a suit, his tie undone as he walked across his own lawn. Kate sized the old man. "Go." "Does the name Daniel Weaver mean something to you?" Daniel fucking what? "I said go." "Your friend Kev. Do you know who he really is?" Another chill. This one making her quiver. "He's not my friend." She searched the man's eyes. They remained kind. "Get lost." The man entered his car, and Kate watched as he started his engine, making sure he drove off. — Eric Marier

It was about time their nose for trouble had a woman's touch. — Luke Taylor

I published that theory [of speciational evolution] in a 1954 paper ... and I clearly related it to paleontology. Darwin argued that the fossil record is very incomplete because some species fossilize better than others ... I noted that you are never going to find evidence of a small local population that changed very rapidly in the fossil record ... Gould was my course assistant at Harvard where I presented this theory again and again for three years. So he knew it thoroughly. So did Eldredge. In fact, in his 1971 paper Eldredge credited me with it. But that was lost over time. — Ernst W. Mayr

Nothing good was withheld from me, even moral guidance was provided as my uncle read to me nightly out of a King James red-letter edition Bible. "Them's the Good Lord's words in red," he would say reverently. These lessons installed in me a sense of moral propriety and spiritual obligation that I would later misconstrue to my own detriment. The strength of character I gleaned from them would enable me to survive myself and all lesser foes. — Sara Niles

I like to wake up late, around 11 A.M., especially if I have been out the night before. Then I go to brunch with either my friends or my girlfriend. I then like to just chill out: read the papers, read some scripts and then take it very easy. If it's sunny, I go for a walk with my dog, Niles, in the countryside. — Douglas Booth

You fight with Niles?" Max asked suddenly.
"No."
"Never?"
"No! And stop asking about Niles," I demanded.
He ignored my demand and kept questioning. "Didn't care enough to fight, didn't match you in fire, or was so lazy he just put up with your shit? — Kristen Ashley

To The Veterans of the United States of America
Thank you, for the cost you paid for our freedom, thank you for the freedom to live in safety and pursue happiness, for freedom of speech (thus my book), and for all the freedoms that we daily take for granted. — Sara Niles

Honeymooners? Well, that was just a big flip of the middle finger to the sanctity of marriage, wasn't it? — Abby Niles

If it is true that an influx of doubt and uncertainty actually marks periods of healthy growth in a science, then evolutionary biology is flourishing today as it seldom has flourished in the past. For biologists collectively are less agreed upon the details of evolutionary mechanics than they were a scant decade ago. Superficially, it seems as if we know less about evolution than we did in 1959, the centennial year of Darwin's on the Origin of Species. — Niles Eldredge

A thoughtful expression crossed the woman's damp face. "I used to beat myself up over my body. What woman doesn't?" She paused, as if thinking about her words. "I finally decided I'd had enough. It was time to believe in me, without shame. I still slip up and have doubts. But for the most part, I take pride in who I am. — Abby Niles

The theory of punctuated equilibrium, proposed by Niles Eldredge and myself, is not, as so often misunderstood, a radical claim for truly sudden change, but a recognition that ordinary processes of speciation, properly conceived as glacially slow by the standard of our own life-span, do not resolve into geological time as long sequences of insensibly graded intermediates (the traditional, or gradualistic, view), but as geologically "sudden" origins at single bedding planes. — Stephen Jay Gould

And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing. — Mary Oliver

To be human, is to be able to love the unlovable, and hope when things appear hopeless — Sara Niles

Not one fuckin' thing gentlemanly about protecting what's yours. Looks like you're gonna lose it, you do everything you can to stop that from happening." Max looked back to Niles. "And you didn't do that. She was a week away from me, she walked into a room I was in holdin' another man's hand, I'd lose my fuckin' mind. Not at her. Wonderin' where I lost my way and I'd talk to her about how to find my way back. — Kristen Ashley

And, I also had to admit, no matter where I went and what I did, Niles didn't seem bothered with whether I arrived safe and sound. He didn't check in, even if I was traveling for work and would be away for a few days. And when I checked in, he didn't seem bothered with the fact that I was checking in. Or, lately (because I tested it a couple of times), when I didn't check in and then arrived home safely, sometimes days later, he didn't seem bothered by the fact that I hadn't checked in. — Kristen Ashley

I'm doing now with cornets exactly what I used to do with trilobites: measuring, analyzing and cataloging the myriad gradations of their forms. — Niles Eldredge

Paul turned her to face him. I see a breathtaking woman scared to death to see how beautiful she actually is, a woman refusing to live because she has spent her entire life feeling inadequate in her appearance, a woman who has nothing to be ashamed of. — Abby Niles

And it has been the paleontologist- my own breed-who have been most responsible for letting ideas dominate reality: ... We paleontologist have said that the history of life supports that interpretation [gradual adaptive change], all the while knowing that it does not. — Niles Eldredge

Jumping in the hot tub with this woman had been a decision of epically stupid proportions. — Abby Niles

The climate of Barrow is Arctic. Temperatures range from cold as shit to fucking freezing. — Steve Niles

One measure of the greatness of a work is that the characters who play roles in the narrative feel its essential truth. As someone who is proud to have been there during much of the action David Sepkoski describes, I give his description and analysis of the history of paleobiology a five-star rating; to my mind, this actually was the way it was. — Niles Eldredge

The sun would still rise, the seasons would still come, life would continue. I was thankful to have been a part of it; I would take the memories and savor them for the life ahead. I had been given the components that would comprise the fate of my destiny; they had aged into my soul so that part of the past would always remain with me. They would be there for me to draw strength from on days in my future when death would seem a triumph and life too hard to live any more. — Sara Niles

My irritation with Niles was growing, though. I had always thought the quiet man was the most overrated form of human life. — Pat Conroy

Perfect doesn't just mean happy. Perfect can have lots of different parts. - Niles. — Pat Conroy

The power of the unknown fact hit me like a bolt of lightning, that maybe, my father did care about me after all, and I realized another true thing that day: the love of a father is invaluable; regardless of how old you become, or how many bridges you cross in life — Sara Niles

I could leave the world of the book enthralled and inspired, but the real world awaited me, to caress or to kick me; reality was a powerful force that could not be ignored. — Sara Niles

Internal growth and development were not entirely unaffected by my external environment. No amount of escapism, through either the physical or the mental outlets, could cushion me from the reality of what was taking place. — Sara Niles

It is strange how intricately life hangs in the scales, and how unrelated events and single decisions alter the outcomes. Some remote land ten thousand miles from me, some land unfamiliar to me, held the key to my future. — Sara Niles

Thomas finally tired of playing with me mentally and moved into phase two of his obsession to rid himself of me. I was informed continually that resistance would be futile, and there was no way to escape — Sara Niles

He put the knuckles of his fist to the table, leaned toward Niles and spoke quietly, cuttingly, in his rough, gravelly voice.
"Fucked her last night, man, and this morning. Five times. Five. It was like she hadn't been touched in a decade. So fuckin' sweet. Damn," he taunted, his eyes locked on Niles. "You've had her, you gotta know, not enough money in the world's worth that. — Kristen Ashley

So many times through the course of a season you are defined by your backups. They have three players in [Kirk] Cousins, Niles [Paul] and [Bashaud] Breeland who may be better than the players that they're replacing. — Bill Cowher

Is not the midnight like Central Africa to most of us? Are we not tempted to explore it,
to penetrate to the shores of its Lake Tchad, and discover the source of its Nile, perchance the Mountains of the Moon? Who knows what fertility and beauty, moral and natural, are to be found? In the Mountains of the Moon, in the Central Africa of the night, there is where all Niles have their hidden heads. The expeditions up the Nile as yet extend but to the Cataracts, or perchance to the mouth of the White Nile; but it is the black Nile that concerns us. — Henry David Thoreau

Progress or lack of it, can only be judged by a measuring rod, and if the rod is placed low enough the standard will never threaten you — Sara Niles