No Signal Quotes & Sayings

Justine pulled her Jag over to the side of the road and stared out at the landscape. I twirled the dial on her police band radio until the signal was clear. She opened her thermos, passed it over to me. I took a sip. The coffee was black, unsugared. That's the way Justine liked just about everything: straight up, no bullshit. — James Patterson

A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering. Rather, he seeks to establish a relationship with meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our live trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." To finish is sadness to a writer, a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done. — John Steinbeck

Nyx had killed a lot of people. She'd let even more die through neglect. Rhys was just one more. I'm the same person, aren't I? she thought. She had burned herself up, only to come out the other side exactly the same.

Taite's signal would get out, Nyx knew. It would be soon enough to save *her*.

But it would not be soon enough for Rhys.

Nyx hardened her jaw. Her hands and feet were still tied. They'd stripped her of her most obvious weapons. She could just wait this out.

She saw Rhys register that. But there was no shock. Just resignation. He knew her for what she was.

Butcher. Monster.

The same old monster. — Kameron Hurley

One unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. — James Q. Wilson

By choosing a woman to run for your nation's second highest office, you send a powerful signal to all Americans. There are no doors we cannot unlock. We will place no limits on achievement. — Geraldine Ferraro

Companies come up with elaborate, often passive-aggressive ways to say no: processes to follow, approvals to get, meetings to attend. No is like a tiny death to smart creatives. No is a signal that the company has lost its start-up verve, that it's too corporate. Enough no's, and smart creatives stop asking and start heading to the exits. — Eric Schmidt

Strong convictions do not necessarily signal a powerful sense of self: very often quite the opposite. Intensely held beliefs may be no more than a person's unconscious effort to build a sense of self to fill what, underneath, is experienced as a vacuum. — Gabor Mate

Our neighbors turned to stare at us, because Miles Richter laughing was one of those things that the Mayans had predicted would signal the end of the world. He wasn't particularly loud about it, but it was Miles laughing, a sound no mortal had ever heard before. — Francesca Zappia

Life is like a Tick mark. it is stable for a time. then it takes a ditch not because we are meant to be upset but to go higher and be better, you need to lean back and jump. life is like a ANalog signal it have its highs and lows.
i take it as 1st cycle of life with 90 degree rise.
Other's life look like a normal sign curve , they are lining a simple life with no trouble.
but we observe noise when we actually look closer. they have their own stuff though whihc they need to pull themself thorugh.
we get upset that we are not anything. i m done with life( i thought that when i was 16 and half, not sucide attempt and reason was i got pimples and scars). with time they healed well and so did my mentality to alot extent enough to oost within. point is we may think we are not good enough but you will be surprised to see that there are many other who want to be at your place and are counting on you. — Life

Humans love sex. Both men and women are wired to be sexually responsive. Sex is the social glue of the human species. It takes heavy-handed training or trauma to kill a human's sex drive.
Religion has that power. Sexual training in guilt, shame, and fear begins virtually at birth by sexualizing nudity. The religious signal is that nudity is always sexual and the body must be covered for modesty. The Adam and Eve story is taught to young children even though they have no way to know what it means. — Darrel Ray

We need long train journeys on which we have no wireless signal — Alain De Botton

Today"

The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: "Now," and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.

And it is already begun, the chord
that will shiver glass, the song full of time
bending above us. Outside, a sign:
a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
"Be warm." No one is out there, but a giant
has passed through town, widening streets, touching
the ground, shouldering away the stars. — William Stafford

The studies of women's lives over time portray the role of crisis in transition and underline the possibilities for growth and despair that lie in the recognition of defeat. The studies of Betty and Sarah elucidate the transitions in the development of an ethic of care. The shifts in concern from survival to goodness and from goodness to truth are elaborated through time in these two women's lives. Both studies illustrate the potential of crisis to break a cycle of repetition and suggest that crisis itself may signal a return to a missed opportunity for growth. These portraits of transition are followed by depictions of despair, illustrations of moral nihilism in women who could find no answer to the question "why care? — Carol Gilligan

At the stair-foot Hephaistion was waiting. He happened to be there, as he happened to have a ball handy if Alexander wanted a game, or water if he was thirsty; not by calculation, but in a constant awareness by which no smallest trifle was missed. Now, when he came down the stairs with a shut mouth and blue lines under his eyes, Hephaistion received some mute signal he understood, and fell into step beside him. — Mary Renault

Greek writers of the fifth century B.C. have a way of speaking of, an attitude towards, religion, as though it were wholly a thing of joyful confidence, a friendly fellowship with the gods, whose service is but a high festival for man. In Homer sacrifice is but, as it were, the signal for a banquet of abundant roast flesh and sweet wine; we hear nothing of fasting, of cleansing, and atonement. This we might perhaps explain as part of the general splendid unreality of the heroic saga, but sober historians of the fifth century B.C. express the same spirit. Thucydides is assuredly by nature no reveller, yet religion is to him in the main 'a rest from toil.' He makes Pericles say: 'Moreover we have provided for our spirit very many opportunities of recreation, by the celebration of games and sacrifices throughout the year. — Jane Ellen Harrison

There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Care to explain?" Ari asked.
"Didn't you see my signals?"
"Yeah. But they didn't make sense. Five into one and it's an intrusion."
"It's an illusion! Five of them are an illusion."
"That's not the signal for illusion. This is." Ari demonstrated the proper signal.
"That's what I did."
"No, you didn't. You did a weird twisty thing with your pinky."
"I had a scimitar at my throat. I'd like to see you try signaling under those conditions."
-Janco and Ari bickering — Maria V. Snyder

-Of course movies today no longer require film. They are recorded and held in digital suspension as ones and zeroes. And so at the moment the last remaining piece of the world is lit and shot for a movie, there will be another Big Bang ... and the multitudes of ones and zeroes will be strewn through the universe as particles that act like waves ... until, shaken by borealic winds or ignited by solar flares or otherwise galvanized by this or that heavenly signal, they compose themselves into brilliant constellations that shine in full color across the night sky of a remote planet ... where a reverent, unrecognizable form of life will look up from its rooftops at the faces of Randolph Scott, Gail Russell, George Brent, Linda Darnell ... to name just a few of the stars. — E.L. Doctorow

If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes. — Malcolm Gladwell

Man, it seems, is not able to bear the languid rest on Nature's bosom, and when the trumpet sounds the signal of danger, he hastens to join his comrades, no matter what the cause that calls him to arms. He rushes into the thickest of the fight, and amid the uproar of the battle regains confidence in himself and his powers. — Alphonse De Lamartine

I'm not really out in the world all that much. I mean, I live with no phone signal, in the hills surrounded by trees, and I have, like, a mom and two baby deer that come by all the time, and my dogs and the squirrels are in a full-on feud every morning. — Brie Larson

The most intriguing candidate for that "something else" is called the Broken Windows theory. Broken Windows was the brainchild of the criminologist James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. Wilson and Kelling argued that crime is the inevitable result of disorder. If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes. In a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, and aggressive panhandling, they write, are all the equivalent of broken windows, invitations to more serious crimes: — Malcolm Gladwell

Family members are often just frustrated that, no matter how hard they try to provide companionship, take care of chores, and so forth, they can't replace the person who's gone," Amanda-Lee said sympathetically. "When the grieving spouse talks about that person, the children and grandchildren take it as a complaint or a signal that they're not doing a good enough job. The reality is
that the grieving spouse just needs someone to talk to, someone to reminisce with. — Lisa Wingate

Here's the thing about close combat in real life: It's almost always over in a matter of seconds. Not like in the movies, where your hero has the luxury to strategize and maneuver and grapple for minutes on end. Fortunately, when your life is in danger, your brain kicks in. Deep inside your brain this little almond-shaped gland called the amygdala sends out the signal to make your body start pumping out dopamine and adrenaline and cortisol. Time seems to slow, your focus sharpens, you suddenly start perceiving way more stimuli than normal. Neurologists call this tachypsychia. Everyone else calls it the fight-or-flight response. Cavemen who didn't have it got eaten by saber-toothed tigers. So I made a quick decision. I could either be incapacitated by a Taser, or I could put myself within the reach of Bondarchuk's fists. No choice. — Joseph Finder

Mouse likes to drag you to uninhabited areas with no cell signal - all those places perfect for dying of exposure. — Elle Lothlorien

Awhile, adv.
I love the vagueness of words that involve time. 'It took him awhile to come back'
it could be a matter of minutes or hours, days or years.
It is easy for me to say it took me awhile to know. That is about as accurate as I can get. There were sneak previews of knowing, for sure. Instance that made me feel, oh, this could be right, But the moment I shifted from a hope that needed to be proven to a certainty that would be continually challenged? There's no pinpointing that.
Perhaps it never happened. Perhaps it happened while I was asleep. Most likely, there's no signal event. There's just the steady accumulation of 'awhile'. — David Levithan

For we were thinking of freedom. That's the word like a worm in my brain. Yes? No? How much? How little? The word is a signal for piracy and theft and cunning. We'll be free and the smartest will then be able to enslave the others. But! But there is another meaning to the word. Of all words this one is the most dangerous. We who know must be wary. The word makes us feel good - in fact the word is a great ideal. But it's with this ideal that the spiders spin their ugliest webs for us. — Carson McCullers

Night lay upon the forest. There was no moon, but the stars of Silverpelt shed their frosty glitter over the trees. At the bottom of a rocky hollow, a pool reflected the starshine. The air was heavy with the scents of late greenleaf. Wind sighed softly through the trees and ruffled the quiet surface of the pool. At the top of the hollow, the fronds of bracken parted to reveal a cat; her bluish grey fur glimmered as she stepped delicately from rock to rock, down to the water's edge. Sitting on a flat stone that jutted out over the pool, she raised her head to look around. As if at a signal, more cats began to appear, slipping into the hollow from every direction. They padded down to sit as close to the water as they could, until the lower slopes were filled with lithe shapes gazing down into the pool. — Erin Hunter

Nils's gardens no longer bore any relationship to the needs of the house. Each spring he plowed and planted acres of vegetables and flowers. The coming up of the asparagus shoots was the signal for a hopeless race between the vegetables and Mrs. Garrison's table. Nils, embittered by the waste that he himself was the author of, came each evening to the kitchen door to tell the cook that unless they are more peas, more strawberries, more beans, more lettuce, more cabbages, the magnificent vegetables that he had watered with his sweat would rot.
- The Common Day — John Cheever

... Faustus ... dared to confirm he had advanced beyond the level of a scarlet sinner - he was a conscious follower of the Prince of Darkness. The fact he could publicly project an Antichrist image with pride, having no fear of reprisal, and his seeming diabolical art of escaping all punishment when others who were considered heretics had burned at the stake for less, would certainly signal that an unnatural individual walked in their midst. It is true in many respects he assumed the role of the charlatan, yet how apropos, considering his willingness to follow his 'brother-in-law' known as the Father of Lies and deception. — E.A. Bucchianeri

I've always been timid. I wait for the mating signal, yet I want to show my interest, but I'm too goddamn bashful to go for it! I have no sympathy for wolves. Why can't a man wait and see if there is any interest in them? Every woman wants to be pursued, it's a courting dance, a mating game and it should be that way, played out. The world is full of creeps. — Anton Szandor LaVey

I cadged a complimentary green matchbook with a gold bird icon from the Bell canning jar. Later we'd use the matches to light our spliffs. My fingertips tapped the stem to the gizmo that dinged a bell. Nobody came out. Wrong signal, so I did two bell rings. No response prompted me to tap out a series of bell rings. — Ed Lynskey

God always knows our conscious, if it's bad He will stricken it, if it's good He will keep it clear, if you have no conscious then you're dead to God. — Anthony Liccione

But this was no ordinary clothesline. It had been strung right through the trees, on up to the porch of Frost's cabin--and at the top end was tied a bell. When someone down below tugged hard, the bell rang right outside the cabin. This was a signal to Frost that it would be worth his while to walk on down the hill. But as Frost got well into his seventies, he sometimes did not hear the bell. Gillie did, though. At its ting-a-ling, the dog would stretch and get to his feet, then go and find his master. Gillie would tug gently at the toe of Frost's sneaker. When Frost got the dog's signal, he would start down to the white farmhouse. — Doris Faber

What the hel - "
"Finally! I can talk!" Janco said.
Ari turned. Janco held the Sandseed's scimitar in his hand. The man lay on the ground, unconscious.
"Care to explain?" Ari asked.
"Didn't you see my signals?"
"Yeah. But they didn't make sense. Five into one and it's an intrusion."
"It's an illusion! Five of them are an illusion."
"That's not the signal for illusion. This is." Ari demonstrated the proper signal.
"That's what I did."
"No, you didn't. You did a weird twisty thing with your pinky."
"I had a scimitar at my throat. I'd like to see you try signaling under those conditions."
Ari opened his mouth to retort, but thought better of it. They could argue for weeks and not resolve a thing. He changed tactics. "You did very well. You knocked him unconscious and stopped his magic."
As expected, Janco preened. — Maria V. Snyder

Bear with me then, if lawful what I ask; Love not the heav'nly Spirits, and how thir Love Express they, by looks onely, or do they mix Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch? To whom the Angel with a smile that glow'd Celestial rosie red, Loves proper hue, Answer'd. Let it suffice thee that thou know'st Us happie, and without Love no happiness. Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy'st (And pure thou wert created) we enjoy In eminence, and obstacle find none Of membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs: Easier then Air with Air, if Spirits embrace, Total they mix, Union of Pure with Pure Desiring; nor restrain'd conveyance need As Flesh to mix with Flesh, or Soul with Soul. But I can now no more; the parting Sun Beyond the Earths green Cape and verdant Isles HESPEREAN sets, my Signal to depart. — John Milton

You take your flashlight out on your walks, right?" Simon asked.
"Depends on the moonlight."
"From now on, take it with you every night. When you're out
walking this way, you'll pass the gazebo, where, chances are, I will
be smoking."
"Then what?"
"You can signal - say, three times if you want to take a walk with
me. Twice if you want to walk alone. that way I'll just let you walk
on. It'll be like a military code. No one gets hurt."
I laughed. "that's silly and charming."
"I try. I can signal back with my cigarette lighter too," Simon
said, holding up the lighter and firing off three short bursts of
flame. "So, like, if I see you first and I happen to not wish to talk to
you, I can fire off two bursts and block you in your tracks. — Amanda Howells

On the other hand, she never looked as -big- as she did at that moment.
"What?" Rose demanded, glaring up at him.
The warning signal flashed bright red in Kane's head. Telling a woman she was as big as a beach ball wouldn't win any points. How did one describe how she looked? A basketball? Volleyball? He studied her furious little face. Yeah. He was in big trouble no matter what he said. Description was out of the question. He needed diplomacy, something that flew out of the window when he was near her and she said the words like contractions. — Christine Feehan

You'd rather be here than in Africa. The trump card all narrow-minded nativists play. If you put a cupcake to my head, of course, I'd rather be here than any place in Africa, though I hear Johannesburg ain't that bad and the surf on the Cape Verdean beaches is incredible. However, I'm not so selfish as to believe that my relative happiness, including, but not limited to, twenty-four-hour access to chili burgers, Blu-ray, and Aeron office chairs is worth generations of suffering. I seriously doubt that some slave ship ancestor, in those idle moments between being raped and beaten, was standing knee-deep in their own feces rationalizing that, in the end, the generations of murder, unbearable pain and suffering, mental anguish, and rampant disease will all be worth it because someday my great-great-great-great-grandson will have Wi-Fi, no matter how slow and intermittent the signal is. — Paul Beatty

answers) 8.There is no crosswalk and you see a pedestrian crossing your lane ahead. You should: Stop and let him/her finish crossing the street. 9.It is illegal to listen to: Listening to music through headphones that cover both ears. 10.Always stop before you cross railroad tracks when: You don't have room on the other side to completely cross the tracks. 11.When you tailgate other drivers (drive close to their rear bumper): You can frustrate the other drivers and make them angry. 12.Should you always drive slower than other traffic? No, you can block traffic when you drive too slowly. 13.You see a signal person at a road construction site ahead. You should obey his or her instructions: At all times. 14.If you plan to pass another vehicle, you should: Not assume the other driver will make space for you to return to your lane — Southern California Educational Services

Three Moonie 65-megaton hydrogen bombs exploded nearly simultaneously at very high altitude. With no air around the bombs to absorb the initial blast of the explosions, and convert the energy into mechanical shock waves - - all the nuclear energy blasted out in its electromagnetic form. It was a brutally intense pulse of Compton recoil electrons and photoelectrons that created huge electric and magnetic fields that were MURDER on sensitive electronic equipment at tremendous distances. The electro-magnetic fields, coupled with electric and computer systems, producing huge voltage spikes in the circuits and damaging current surges along all signal paths, fusing precision engineered memory and micro-boards and virtual drives and CPUs into fried silicon laced junk! Nanobots to Nanoscrap in Nanoseconds! — @hg47

Books gave us a way to shape ourselves - to form our thoughts and to signal to each other who we were and who we wanted to be. They were part of our self-fashioning, no less than our clothes. — Rebecca Mead

As I came closer, it took shape: long, slender, and curling, with numerous heart-shaped leaves. I felt my soul leap inside me.
For Ivy's tree was now hung with her namesake. Jade-green ivy clutched the bark with such strength that, no matter how hard you pulled, it would never let go.
I know I started crying then.
My friends came to my side at once, patting my back and telling me that everything was going to be okay. And though the tears kept coming, I knew they were right. Everything was really going to be fine now.
Because here, in front of me, was something I'd been hoping and praying for. I'd been searching for a sign, a signal to give me comfort in Ivy's passing and to tell me she was okay. And at last, here it was, growing all around me. — Colleen Boyd

Art on the contrary sought this harmony in practice (of art itself). More and more in its creations it has given inwardness to that what surrounds us in nature, until, in Neo-Plasticism, nature is no longer dominant. This achievement of balance may prepare the way for the fulfilment of man and signal the end of (what we call) art. (1921/23 — Piet Mondrian

Despite the proliferation of personal storytelling in recent years, and the shift in social conditions that has facilitated these stories being told and heard, there are still certain stories that cannot be told - either because we have no language with which to articulate them or because there is no interpretive community to hear and understand them. These stories become, instead, secrets and lies - stories that signal social isolation and disempowerment rather than connection and strength. One such story within contemporary culture, as the epigraphs from Dorothy Allison and Victoria Brownworth suggest, is the story of class - a story that often only becomes tellable as a lie, joke, or dirty secret. This is especially the case with the category of "white trash. — Annalee Newitz

There are no meaningful translations for these terms. They are needlessly recursive. They contain no usable intelligence, yet they are structured intelligently; there is no chance they could have arisen by chance. The only explanation is that something has coded nonsense in a way that poses as a useful message; only after wasting time and effort does the deception becomes apparent. The signal functions to consume the resources of a recipient for zero payoff and reduced fitness. The signal is a virus. Viruses do not arise from kin, symbionts, or other allies. The signal is an attack. — Peter Watts

Take a bunch of teenage boys from the whitest, safest suburb in America and plunk them down in a place where their friends are murdered and they are constantly attacked and threatened, "writes Leovy in Ghettoside. "Signal that no one cares, and fail to solve murders. Limit their options for escape. Then see what happens. — Gary Younge

The informality of his posture, combined with the strict formality of his clothes, gave him an air of superlative elegance. His was the only face that had the carefree look and the brilliant smile proper to the enjoyment of a party; but his eyes seemed intentionally expressionless, holding no trace of gaiety, showing - like a warning signal - nothing but the activity of a heightened perceptiveness. — Ayn Rand

I got out late winter. I was off on the exact day by thirty-some hours, which is not bad calculations. I made the decision when I went in to keep track of the days, for the simple reason that it was the intention of my jailers to jettison my sense of time and place. They brought you in a metal truck with no windows and took you out in the same truck or one damned similar. The rumor was that Bell Federal Penitentiary was somewhere in the plains of the Montana-Saskatchewan annex. The sight from my cell would not have refuted this. The white of the snow and sky filled my eyes like the sheet pulled over the head of a dead man. If it was not Montana-Saskatchewan, then it was the North Pole, or the moon. It was a signal to anyone who's ever doubted the terror of an idea that almost all of us in this prison that had no time or place were utterly guiltless of a violent act, unless one counts the violence of tongues. — Steve Erickson

To answer a popular question, if we define sound as traveling fluctuations in air pressure, then yes, a tree falling in the woods with no one nearby does indeed make a sound. If we define sound to be the electrical signal transmitted by the mechanisms of our inner ears to our brains, then no, that tree falling in the woods makes no sound. — Richard G. Lyons

There's no harm in a child crying: the harm is done
only if his cries aren't answered ... If you ignore
a baby's signal for help, you don't teach him
ndependence ... What you teach him is that no
other human being will take care of his needs — Lee Salk

Whenever Alexander heard Philip had taken any town of importance, or won any signal victory, instead of rejoicing at it altogether, he would tell his companions that his father would anticipate everything, and leave him and them no opportunities of performing great and illustrious actions. — Plutarch

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. — Winston S. Churchill

Paradise, blooded daughter of Abalone, First Adviser to the King, frowned at the screen of her Apple lappy. She'd set herself up here in her father's library ever since he'd started working each night for Wrath, son of Wrath, because in the old rambling Tudor mansion, Wi-Fi was strongest at this desk. Not that a good signal was helping her at the moment. Her Hotmail account was full of unread messages, because, with iMessage on her phone and her Twitter, Instagram, and FB accounts, there was no reason to sign into it very often. — J.R. Ward

Okay, raise your hand if you've ever (1) dropped food or ice cream or a drink in front of (or on) someone; (2) realized you had a big stain on your clothes and it has apparently been there all day and people must have seen it but no one said anything (extra points if it's related to a female cyclic event); (3) realized after an important dinner with someone that you had a big crumb on your lip and that's what they kept trying to subtly signal you about but you didn't pick up on it; (4) mispronounced an obvious word in front of a bunch of people. I could go on. The point is, those kinds of things happen to everyone. I bet you're still upset or embarrassed about it, right? Well, you can freaking get over your lame-ass, sissy-pants, drama-queen self. When — Cate Tiernan

I understood that he was my host, though he only glanced at me and walked by, and I did not have the audacity to signal to him in any way. He hurried into the station and came out again minutes later with no expression of hope. At last he saw me and pointed with his index finger: "You're Gabito, right?" I answered him with all my heart: "Almost, now. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Mistakes, scandals, and failures no longer signal catastrophe. The crucial thing is that they be made credible, and that the public be made aware of the efforts being expended in that direction. The marketing immunity of governments is similar to that of the major brands of washing powder. — Jean Baudrillard

Like a black hole, NSA pulls in every signal that comes near, but no electron is ever allowed to escape. — James Bamford

What a signal convenience is fame. Do we read all authors to grope our way to the best? No, but the world selects for us the best, and we select from these our best. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Just curious? That's a bullshit phrase."
"It's a simple question. How long - "
"No, it's a signal that bullshit is about to follow. It's the hat that bullshit puts on before it goes out to get the paper. — Daryl Gregory

Faith asks no signal from the skies, To show that prayers accepted rise, Our Priest is in His holy place, And answers from the throne of grace. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Absolute time would exist in a causal structure for which the concept indeterminate as to time order lends to a unique simultaneity, i.e., for which there is no finite interval of time between the departure and return of a first-signal ... — Hans Reichenbach

It's not that they knew what you were doing exactly. They could feel what you were feeling, and as the lie you were contemplating brought you down, they felt that drain themselves, and thus became more confused and unclear---which was an unconscious signal to them that something was wrong, and that you were probably up to no good. So they backed away. — James Redfield

It worked! Holy shit, it worked! I just suited up and checked the lander. The high-gain antenna is angled directly at Earth! Pathfinder has no way of knowing where it is, so it has no way of knowing where Earth is. The only way for it to find out is getting a signal. They know I'm alive! I don't even know what to say. This was an insane plan and somehow it worked! I'm going to be talking to someone again. I spent three months as the loneliest man in history and it's finally over. Sure, I might not get rescued. But I won't be alone. The whole time I was recovering Pathfinder, I imagined what this moment would be like. I figured I'd jump up and down a bit, cheer, maybe flip off the ground (because this whole damn planet is my enemy), but that's not what happened. When I got back to the Hab and took off the EVA suit, I sat down in the dirt and cried. Bawled like a little kid for several minutes. I finally settled down to mild sniffling and then felt a deep calm. It was a good calm. — Andy Weir

A blush is no language; only a dubious flag - signal which may mean either of two contradictories — George Eliot

Critics stopped being relevant when they stopped writing to inform and contextualize, and when they started writing to signal who they are, to display their identity by their stance on what they are writing about. Criticism should never be about the critic, but thats what it has become, and that's why no one cares about them anymore. — Tucker Max

Not merely hope, but any burdensome yearning: ambition, hatred, love (especially love) - how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at see, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us. Catastrophe has become art; but this is no reducing process. It is freeing, enlarging, explaining. Catastrophe has become art: that is, after all, what it is for. — Julian Barnes

Pain is nothing, just a warning signal from the body to the brain. Pain is no more the real thing than an X-ray photograph is the real thing. Biut of course he is wrong. — J.M. Coetzee

Told him to keep the change. The barman looked at it and then looked at Ford. He suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he didn't understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced it before. In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth. — Douglas Adams

I flick my turn signal on out of dumb habit, and because the end of the world's no excuse for bad driving manners. — Alexandra Bracken

Influenza is a serious disease. Kids die of influenza, both in Japan and the United States, and if you give a drug to people who are at risk of dying, there will be people who die who got the drug, ... There is no signal the drug is doing it as opposed to the disease. — Robert Nelson

REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted. — Ambrose Bierce

Lifting their heads, and with no signal given as far as Ransom could see, they began to sing. To every man, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner of the curtain that hides its mystery, and reveals, in a burst of delight which later and fuller understanding can hardly ever equal, one glimpse of the indefinite possibilities within. — C.S. Lewis

Persistent, Mike thought. Mark of those who succeed. Indeed, it was the mark of something, but not success. It was refusing to hear "no," a clear signal of trouble in any context. Forty — Gavin De Becker

No" in the room might signal to everyone that they should keep silent. — Sam Killermann

She sat silently in her rocking chair. Some people are good at talking, but Granny Weatherwax was good at silence. She could sit so quiet and still that
she faded. You forgot she was there. The room became empty.
Tiffany thought of it as the I'm-not-here spell, if it was a spell. She reasoned that everyone had something inside them that told the world they
were there. That was why you could often sense when someone was behind you, even if they were making no sound at all. You were receiving their
I-am-here signal.
Some people had a very strong one. They were the people who got served first in shops. Granny Weatherwax had an I-am-here signal that bounced off the mountains when she wanted it to; when she walked into a forest, all the wolves and bears ran out the other side. She could turn it off, too. She was doing that now. Tiffany was having to concentrate to see her. Most of her mind was telling her that there was no one there at all. — Terry Pratchett

POSTNot a head stands out A finger rises Then it is the voice that one knows A signal a brief note A man leaves Up above a cloud that passes by No one goes in And the night keeps its secret — Pierre Reverdy

Duran Duran blared from the car stereo. The woman, two silver bracelets on the hand she dangled out the window, cast a glance in my direction. I could have been a Denny's restaurant sign or a traffic signal, it would have been no different. She was your regular sort of beautiful young woman, I guess. In a TV drama, she'd be the female lead's best friend, the face that appears once in a cafe scene to say, What's the matter? You haven't been yourself lately. — Haruki Murakami

Sometimes writer's block is no more than a signal that you have not done enough research. — Sophy Burnham

He whose heart is divinely touched with the magnet of God's Spirit, will endeavor to attract those who are near him to Christ. The heathen could say, "We are not born for ourselves only." The more excellent anything is, the more diffusive it is. In the body every member is diffusive: the eye conveys light; the head, spirits; the heart, blood. A Christian must not move altogether within his own circle - but seek the welfare of others. To be diffusively good makes us resemble God, whose sacred influence is universal. And surely it will be no grief of heart, when conscience can witness for us that we have brought glory to God in this matter by working to fill heaven. Not that this is in any way meritorious, or has any causal influence on our salvation. Christ's blood is the sole cause - but our promoting God's glory in the conversion of others is a signal evidence of our salvation. — Thomas Watson

You're very welcome," she said, giving my hair a hard tug. "You should be used to being gawked at by now."
"And yet I'm not."
"Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal, and I'll get up on the banquet table, toss my skirt over my head, and do a little dance. That way no one will be looking at you. — Leigh Bardugo

Not futuristic enough? What about an interspecies Internet - one that links elephants, dolphins, and great apes for "the purposes of enrichment, research, and preservation"? Though it may sound crazy, it's already here. In Australia, for example, there are over 300 sharks on Twitter (no, they did not sign up themselves). Researchers fitted 338 sharks, including many great whites, with acoustic tags that send an electronic signal to shore-based receivers when the animals come within half a mile of the beach. For a country that has suffered more fatal shark attacks than any other, this IoT development is saving human lives, and the sharks have attracted nearly forty thousand beach-going Twitter followers as a result. — Marc Goodman

Lie beside me. Let me see the division of your pores. Let me see the web of scars made by your family's claws and you their furniture. Let me see the wounds that they denied. The battle ground of family life that has been your body. Let me see the bruised red lines that signal their encampment. Let me see the routed place where they are gone. Lie beside me and let the seeing be healing. No need to hide. No need for either darkness or light. Let me see you as you are. — Jeanette Winterson

The Turkish infantry were as fine as they had ever been, and their field artillery was presentable. But they had none of the modern weapons which from May, 1940, were proved to be decisive. Aviation was lamentably weak and primitive. They had no tanks or armoured cars, and neither the workshops to make and maintain them nor the trained men and staffs to handle them. They had hardly any anti-aircraft or anti-tank artillery. Their signal service was rudimentary. Radar was unknown to them. Nor did their warlike qualities include any aptitude for all these modern developments. — Winston S. Churchill

I ran a constant low fever waiting for my ride to come and take me away to something finer. I lay in bed at night, watching the red beacon on top of the water tower, a clear signal to me of the beauty and mystery of a life that waited for me far away, and thought of Housman's poem,
"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom upon the bough.
It stands among the woodland ride,
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my three-score years and ten,
Twenty will not come again ... "
and would have run away to where people would appreciate me, had I known of such a place, had I thought my parents would understand. But if I had said, "Along the woodland I must go to see the cherry hung with snow," they would have said, "Oh,no, you don't. You're going to stay right here and finish up what I told you to do three hours ago. Besides, those aren't cherry trees, those are crab apples. — Garrison Keillor

Bodies could be beacons, too, Saul knew. A lighthouse was a fixed beacon for a fixed purpose; a person was a moving one. But people still emanated light in their way, still shone across the miles as a warning, an invitation, or even just a static signal. People opened up so they became a brightness, or they went dark. They turned their light inward sometimes, so you couldn't see it, because they had no other choice. — Jeff VanderMeer

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. — Annie Dillard

THE PROJECTIONIST
The projectionist can make you believe whatever she believes. If she believes interest rates are going to fall, and you have a short conversation with the Projectionist, you will too. If she believes that, no, in fact, you didn't signal when you turned left, causing the Projectionist to ram her car into the back of yours, so will you.
Her downfall began when she fell in love with the Inverse. She absolutely, 100% fell in love with the Inverse. She projected all this emotion onto him but the Inverse, being the Inverse, simply reflected the opposite of everything she was sending.
Strangely, neither the Inverse nor the Projectionist can let go of the relationship. — Andrew Kaufman

It is when we are incubating particularly awkward but potentially vital ideas that we tend to feel most desperate to avoid looking inside.
... we will have nothing substantial to offer anyone else so long as we have not first mastered the art of being patient midwives to our own thoughts.
We need long train journeys on which we have no wireless signal and nothing to read, where our carriage is mostly empty, where the views are expansive and where the only sounds are those made by the wheels as they click against the rails in rhythmical succession. — Alain De Botton

The expedition for the occupation of the Marquesas had sailed from Brest in the spring of 1842, and the secret of its destination was solely in the possession of its commander. No wonder that those who contemplated such a signal infraction of the rights of humanity should have sought to veil the enormity from the eyes of the world. And yet, notwithstanding their iniquitous conduct in this and in other matters, the French have ever plumed themselves upon being the most humane and polished of nations. A high degree of refinement, however, does not seem to subdue our wicked propensities so much after all; and were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged. One — Herman Melville

No. 1, it [amnesty for illegal aliens] demoralizes the people that are going through the legal process. It's a very clear signal that why go through the legal process if you can accomplish the same thing through the illegal process? And No. 2, it demoralizes the people enforcing the law. So I am not and I will never support - never have and never will support - any effort to grant blanket legalization amnesty to folks who have entered or stayed in this country illegally. — Marco Rubio

To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as "Thank God its Friday" (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive "its" (no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's" (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a Pavlovian "kill" response in the average stickler. — Lynne Truss

In December, at the darkest time of the year, Olenka delivered triplets. Mother-in-law came by and called Benedikt in to come look at the brood. She congratulated him. He lay there, empty and heavy-hearted, waiting for the signal; and there wasn't any. All right then, he'd go take a look.
There were three kids: one appeared to be female, she was tiny and cried. Another seemed to be a boy, but it was hard to tell right off. The third
well, you couldn't figure out what it was
to look at, it was a fuzzy, scary-looking ball. All round-like, but with eyes. They picked it up in their arms to rock it, and started singing: "Bye Baby Bunting, Daddy's gone a-hunting ... " and with a shove it pushed away, jumped on the floor, rolled off, and disappeared into a crack in the floor. They all rushed to catch it, their hands outstretched. They moved stools and benches
but no luck. — Tatyana Tolstaya

Signal learning (or classical or Pavlovian conditioning) is the simplest example [of leaning without consciousness]. If a light signal immediately followed by a puff of air through a rubber tube is directed at a person's eye about ten times, the eyelid, which previously blinked only to the puff of air, will begin to blink to the light signal alone, and this becomes more and more frequent as trials proceed. Subjects who have undergone this well-known procedure of signal learning report that it has no conscious component whatever. Indeed, consciousness, in this example the intrusion of voluntary eye blinks to try to assist the signal learning, blocks it from occurring. — Julian Jaynes

Here are three separate but similar things: shyness, introversion and social anxiety. You can have one, two or all three of these things simultaneously. A lot of the time people thing they're all the same thing, but that's just not true. Extroverts can be shy, introverts can be bold, and a condition like anxiety can strike whatever kind of social animal you are.

Lots of people are shy. Shy is normal. A bit of anxiety is normal. Throw the two together, add some brain-signal error - a NO ENTRY sign on the neural highway from my brain to my mouth perhaps, though no one really knows - and you have me. — Sara Barnard

Time is weird. That much is obvious. Sometimes I think everything happens at once, which is anything but obvious and even weirder. I feel sorry for people who brag about 'living in the moment'; they're like people who come into the cinema after the film has started or people who drink Diet Coke - they're missing out on the best part. I think time is like the dial on a radio. Most people like to settle on a station with a clear signal and no interference. But that doesn't mean you can't listen to two or even three stations at the same time; it doesn't mean synchrony is impossible. Until quite recently, people believed it was impossible for a universe to fit inside two atoms, but it fits. Why dismiss the idea that on time's radio you can listen to the entire history of humanity simultaneously? — Marcelo Figueras

I looked at her without a word. She held an edge of the beach towel in each hand, pressing the edges against her cheeks. White smoke was rising from the cigarette between her fingers. With no wind to disturb it, the smoke rose straight up, like a miniature smoke signal. She was apparently having trouble deciding whether to cry or to laugh. At least she looked that way to me. She wavered atop the narrow line that divided one possibility from the other, but in the end she fell to neither side. May Kasahara pulled her expression together, put the towel on the ground, and took a drag on her cigarette. The time was nearly five o'clock, but the heat showed no sign of abating. — Haruki Murakami

In the glare, the great and terrible light of this happening, God seems to signal that the story of the rest of us need not end, and that the new light can prove a troubled dawn.
For the rest of us, perhaps. Not for the dead, not for the more than fifty million real dead in the world's worst catastrophe: victors and vanquished, combatants and civilians, people of so many nations, men, women, and children, all cut down. For them there can be no new earthly dawn. Yet thought their bones like in the darkness of the grave, they will not have died in vain, if their remembrance can lead us from the long, long time of war to the time for peace. — Herman Wouk

By offering a reward, a principal signals to the agent that the task is undesirable. (If the task were desirable, the agent wouldn't need a prod.) But that initial signal, and the reward that goes with it, forces the principal onto a path that's difficult to leave. Offer too small a reward and the agent won't comply. But offer a reward that's enticing enough to get the agent to act the first time, and the principal "is doomed to give it again in the second." There's no going back. Pay your son to take out the trash - and you've pretty much guaranteed the kid will never do it again for free. What's more, once the initial money buzz tapers off, you'll likely have to increase the payment to continue compliance. — Daniel H. Pink

The illusion is irresistible. Behind every face there is a self. We see the signal of consciousness in a gleaming eye and imagine some ethereal space beneath the vault of the skull, lit by shifting patterns of feeling and thought, charged with intention. An essence. But what do we find in that space behind the face, when we look? The brute fact is there is nothing but material substance: flesh and blood and bone and brain ... You look down into an open head, watching the brain pulsate, watching the surgeon tug and probe, and you understand with absolute conviction that there is nothing more to it. There's no one there. — Thomas Metzinger