No Traffic Quotes & Sayings

It was not woman's fault, nor even love's fault, nor the fault of sex. The fault lay there, out there, in those evil electric lights and diabolical rattling of engines. There, in the world of the mechanical greedy, greedy mechanism and mechanised greed, sparkling with lights and gushing hot metal and roaring with traffic, there lay the vast evil thing, ready to destroy whatever did not conform. Soon it would destroy the wood, and the bluebells would spring no more. All vulnerable things must perish under the rolling and running of iron. — D.H. Lawrence

No trains. No traffic noise. At night, my mother's old bedroom was so dark I couldn't tell if I'd shut my eyes or not. — Susan Fletcher

The police are required to enforce the law in areas where they do not live, do not eat, do not go to the barbershop. They have no interaction with the people in that community except when they are called to resolve an issue. To bridge the gap we must establish relationships with the people and communities we serve. If we don't we will continue to have biases that grow and fester and create deadly situations. — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

I use the term bar-room to represent every means for the sale and traffic in liquor, and I earnestly appeal to the people to put an end to the traffic, no matter under what name or guise it may be carried on. — Thomas Jordan Jarvis

I am bored with gabbers and their gab; my soul abhors them ... Is there any place where there is no traffic in empty talk? Is there on this earth one who does not worship himself talking? — Khalil Gibran

Aedus reached into the center console and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. He drove for ten minutes before the helicopter came in sight, gradually descending towards the airport in his opposite direction. He looked around for a place to make a U-turn, but there was no legal turn available. Aedus sighed. The things a good guy has to do. He made a turn onto a side road and looped back around, tires squealing. In an action movie he'd just make a U-turn wherever, speed down the road, and weave in and out of traffic. Alas, this wasn't an action movie and he wasn't a certain Jason Bour - no time to think about that. The airport was coming up quick and as bustling as ever. — Zechariah Barrett

There's no traffic jam on the extra mile. — Zig Ziglar

Not even a cat was out. The rain surged down with a steady drone. It meant to harm New York and everyone there. The gutters could not contain it. Long ago they had despaired of the job and surrendered. But the rain paid no attention to them ... New York people never lived in houses or even in burrows. They inhabited cells in stone cliffs. They timed the cooking of their eggs by the nearest traffic light. If the light went wrong, so did the eggs ... — Barbara Newhall Follett

I give her my best smile. Before the alien Armageddon happened, I was known for my smile. Not bragging too much, but I had to be careful never to smile while I drove. It had the capacity to blind oncoming traffic. But it has absolutely no effect on Ringer. She doesn't squint in its overwhelming luminescence. She doesn't even blink. — Rick Yancey

This was our last night. We only had one curtain call, Bree. And I thought they were going to give us a standing ovation, but no-o-o-. Do you know why half the audience stood up?"
"To get a head start on the traffic," Bree said.
"To get a head start on the traffic," Antonia agreed in indignation. "I mean, here we are, dancing and singing our little guts out, and all those folks want to do is get to bed early. I ask you, whatever happened to common courtesy? Whatever happened to decent manners? Doesn't anyone care about craft anymore? And on top of that, it's not even nice. — Mary Stanton

The US no longer does decisions. It can neither stop the drug traffic nor legalize it. It can neither win wars nor abandon them, neither make money nor stop spending it, neither stop immigration nor assimilate the immigrants. Washington can beat its thumb with a hammer, yes, and notice that it hurts, but it can't stop beating its thumb. That would take a decision, and Washington doesn't do decisions. — Fred Reed

His face remained immobile as he shut the door and walked back against the traffic. "No, they are not." Dog immediately jumped into the — Craig Johnson

There is no magical solution because urban traffic congestion arises from the fact that a lot of people want to be in the same place at the same time often. — William J. Mitchell

Sunflowers hellos from gate to gate. The hour at the square. Candy, art, books, look. A warmth given. Beauties with rain forest hair Walk by the clock tower. Sunlight of neon, the keys inside their eyes. No storms. Traffic sounds, salt air. Salt that moves the thirst and destroys all the fears. — Gwen Calvo

The snow has quietness in it; no songs,
no smells, no shouts or traffic.
When I speak
my own voice shocks me. — Anne Sexton

He had scorned her, and didn't they say that hell hath no fury
? A scorned woman might well traffic with the devil ... or his henchman. — Stephen King

You have carjacking back in old England?"
"Carjacking?"
"People walk up to you, steal your car."
"No, but thanks for asking. We have people who clean your windscreen against your will, but, er ... "
Joe barked with contempt.
"The thing is," explained Dirk, "in London you could certainly walk up to someone and steal their car, but you wouldn't be able to drive it away."
"Some kinda fancy device?"
"No, just traffic," said Dirk. — Douglas Adams

Another savage trait of our time is the disposition to talk about material substances instead of about ideas. The old civilisation talked about the sin of gluttony or excess. We talk about the Problem of Drink
as if drink could be a problem. When people have come to call the problem of human intemperance the Problem of Drink, and to talk about curing it by attacking the drink traffic, they have reached quite a dim stage of barbarism. The thing is an inverted form of fetish worship; it is no sillier to say that a bottle is a god than to say that a bottle is a devil. The people who talk about the curse of drink will probably progress down that dark hill. In a little while we shall have them calling the practice of wife-beating the Problem of Pokers; the habit of housebreaking will be called the Problem of the Skeleton-Key Trade; and for all I know they may try to prevent forgery by shutting up all the stationers' shops by Act of Parliament. — G.K. Chesterton

We pull on to the road, where our only company are the wandering cattle, who have become commonplace as traffic lights. Lethargic and listless, they look like they've been roaming the roads of Guinea since the dawn of time. And no doubt they will continue to long after we're gone. — Tom Hiddleston

Today he was being reminded yet again of the obvious: The world doesn't give even the slightest damn about us or our petty problems. We never quite get that, do we? Our lives have been shattered - shouldn't the rest of us take notice? But no. To the outside world, Adam looked the same, acted the same, felt the same. We get mad at someone for cutting us off in traffic or for taking too long to order at Starbucks or for not responding exactly as we see fit, and we have no idea that behind their facade, they may be dealing with some industrial-strength shit. Their lives may be in pieces. They may be in the midst of incalculable tragedy and turmoil, and they may be hanging on to their sanity by a thread. — Harlan Coben

True love knows no bargains. It is one-way traffic: giving, giving, giving. — Swami Satchidananda

Matilda?" he said softly as he lowered his head to mine, his eyes shifting to gaze at my lips, then back to my eyes.
He was going to kiss me.
( ... ) "Y-yes?" I breathed.
His lips were almost on mine. His body bent over me, closer, closer. I thought I'd burst for want.
I held my breath and closed my eyes.
His fingers squeezed the back of my neck, gentle and possessive.
"If you make me late," he murmured, his breath warm across my mouth, "I will throttle you."
Wait. What?
My eyes snapped open.
( ... ) By the time I pulled my thoughts together, he was already out the door. His voice floated back to me. "Move, Matilda. We're late."
That was it? No kiss? What was wrong with that man? He was sending off more mixed signals than a three-armed traffic cop. — Devon Monk

A good catcher is the quarterback, the carburetor, the lead dog, the pulse taker, the traffic cop and sometimes a lot of unprintable things, but no team gets very far without one. — Miller Huggins

Will let out a long breath. "She leaves me a lot. That's what she does. She leaves, and then she comes back. And then she stays some and then she leaves again."
"Where does she go?"
"I have no idea."
"You've never asked her?"
"No."
Sara Didn't pretend to understand. "Why not?".
He glanced out into the street, watching the traffic zoom by. "It's complicated. — Karin Slaughter

A moment later I noticed that life around me had gone on as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever occurred. Motorists drove by as usual honking their horns needlessly, brakes screeching, tires squealing; pedestrians maneuvered for an opportunity to dart across traffic. i noticed lawn mowers buzzing in the distance--all this was evidence of the perpetual and sobering reality of life. It goes on no matter who lives or dies.

It was time to find my partner. — Randy Sutton

They were still in the happier stage of love. They were full of brave illusions about each other, tremendous illusions, so that the communion of self with self seemed to be on a plane where no other human relations mattered. They both seemed to have arrived there with an extraordinary innocence as though a series of pure accidents had driven them together, so many accidents that at last they were forced to conclude that they were for each other. They had arrived with clean hands, or so it seemed, after no traffic with the merely curious and clandestine. — F Scott Fitzgerald

If you wish to alter or annihilate a pyramid of numbers in a serial relation, you alter or remove the bottom number. If we wish to annihilate the junk pyramid, we must start with the bottom of the pyramid: the Addict in the Street, and stop tilting quixotically for the "higher ups" so called, all of whom are immediately replaceable. The addict in the street who must have junk to live is the one irreplaceable factor in the junk equation. When there are no more addicts to buy junk there will be no junk traffic. As long as junk need exists, someone will service it. — William S. Burroughs

The Texas Defensive Driving School is an innovative Texas online defensive driving course that provides students the opportunity to remove a traffic ticket. A Texas Defensive Driving School is approved by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to provide online defensive driving instruction in the state of Texas. A The cost of the Texas Defensive driving online course is $25, which is the lowest price allowed by law. A The Texas Defensive Driving School online course has been developed using 100% Flash based videos and is engaging as well as educational. A Because we have included short end of chapter quizzes in the course, no final exam is required. A In addition, because the course is based on Flash based videos, there is no boring reading of endless pages of text. — Gary Hensley

While stores continue to be a very important part of our business, there is no mistaking the fact that the customers' shopping preference, measured by both traffic and sales, continues to move to a virtual experience. — Richard Hayne

Ahead of them lay an expressway access road. Except that there were no guardrails or markings. No road signs either. And no other vehicles at all. Yet the road, following a narrow curve, led to a broad ribbon of asphalt tracing a straight line all the way to the horizon. Again, it had no lines painted on it and there were no signs. Rosa thought there would have been space for four traffic lanes on it, but it was covered with the dust and loose soil that had blown over it.
No other sign of life. Just the two of them, the car, and a forgotten road to nowhere.
"Where does it go?"
"To the end of the world. — Kai Meyer

Jenna reached over and held one of my hands, Kara held the other, and I felt like the universe was holding us all.
For that night, maybe just for that magic moment, it all seemed to make so much sense, like the thousand puzzle pieces of my life were all in place and I knew the How and Why of all things. It was one of those moments that I was sure would stay impressed on me forever because it was real and true. It was as tangible as the blanket beneath me. I felt lik I had touched something, something as big as the universe, and it had touched me back.
I didn't know that even a big moment like that could be snuffed out in a matter of days by packing to go home, by the wrong teacher on the wrong school schedule, or by my uncle getting his brains blown out at a traffic stop.
But all that just made Kara and Jenna brighter stars in my sky. I had no way of knowing that, in a matter of weeks, even those stars would be snuffed out. — Mary E. Pearson

The people were all busy in their cars, listening to the radio, so there was no one to smile at, so I just sent my love to the traffic lights. No one ever appreciates them, all day long, working so hard to turn red and yellow and green, right in time with us to make sure we don't crash into each other. If there was any tiny chance, even the tiniest chance, that they happened to be alive, I bet I was the first person ever to tell them they were special. You are special, I said out loud in my car, but in case they couldn't hear, I cracked my window open. "You are special," I said, to the night air.
And just like that, a green light. — Aimee Bender

Lieutenant Jaxon Knight replied, "No sir. D-L1 is the only jumpgate with a pending arrival and it is due in an hour, and it is just some civilian traffic. I'm not detecting them on the hyperNEP relays, and I really doubt they are an hour early." Captain Devereaux stood up. "Has there been any pirate activity or anything else of note in this sector? Can you get a fix on the fluctuations? How far are they?" Lieutenant Commander Ember Skyrift replied, "It's been quiet, sir, no pirate activity. I can't get a good lock on the flux. The wake is big, at least one large warship. And, sir, it's heading rim-trailward. — Charles Nall

There are many causes of violent deaths in America - murders and traffic accidents - that we do not approach with the same 'no price too steep, no task too difficult' approach that we take toward al Qaeda. — Dennis C. Blair

When it came down to it, though, you had to remember all those assholes cutting you off in traffic and walking the streets and shouting in bars and turning their music up too loud and mugging you and raping you and selling you lemon cars-all those assholes were just children who'd aged. No miracle. Nothing sacred in that. — Dennis Lehane

What are the present governments of Europe, but a scene of iniquity and oppression? What is that of England? Do not its own inhabitants say, It is a market where every man has his price, and where corruption is common traffic, at the expense of a deluded people? No wonder, then, that the French Revolution is traduced. — Thomas Paine

Because I didn't have much money, I bought a small shop that fit my budget. The previous six owners had closed their business in three years. The store had no people traffic and, because of that, I was able to focus on figuring out how to provide a better service to each and every one of the customers that did come through. — Do Won Chang

Have you any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone, how many subdivisions I've had to open?"
I opened my mouth to respond, but Hades was on a roll now.
More security ghouls," he moaned. "Traffic problems at the judgment pavilion. Double overtime for the staff. I used to be a rich god, Percy Jackson. I control all the precious metals under the earth. But my expenses!"
Charon wants a pay raise," I blurted, just remembering the fact. As soon as I said it, I wished I could sew up my mouth.
Don't get me started on Charon!" Hades yelled. "He's been impossible ever since he discovered Italian suits! Problems everywhere, and I've got to handle all of them personally. The commute time alone from the palace to the gates is enough to drive me insane! And the dead just keep arriving. No, godling. I need no help getting subjects! I did not ask for this war. — Rick Riordan

Not only was there no traffic but the rain came down in buckets and I had no shelter. I had to run under some pines to take cover; this did no good; I began crying and swearing and socking myself on the head for being such a damn fool. — Jack Kerouac

The guilty, he reflected as he drove amid the heavy late-afternoon traffic as carefully as possible, may flee when no one pursues - he — Philip K. Dick

I have remade myself; or I am no one, driving a delivery van carrying boxes of electronics from nowhere to no place, the road empty before me by day, shared by headless headlights after dark, beams increasing briefly and then gone, beyond, somewhere off in the cross-traffic, catchable in the rearview if I dare. I thrive. I fail to thrive. I fall. I rise. Too many. Too late. Not that, not those, not these: this. — John Darnielle

Make no mistake, everywhere you go, not just in Marvel Comics,
there's parallel universes ... Here? On the surface streets: traffic, couples in love,
falafel-to-go, tourists in jogging suits licking stamps for postcards ... And over the
wall behind closed doors: other things-people strapped to chairs, sleep deprivation,
the smell of piss ... other things happening for reasons of national
security — Joe Sacco

Billy and the rest wandered out onto the shady street. The trees were leafing out. There was nothing going on out there, no traffic of any kind. There was only one vehicle, an abandoned wagon drawn by two horses. The wagon was green and coffin-shaped. Birds were talking. One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, Poo-tee-weet? — Anonymous

There are no traffic jams along the extra mile — Roger Staubach

As to remedying our personal mistakes, we face no hindering traffic jams on the road of repentance. It is a toll road, not a freeway, and applying Christ's Atonement will speed us along. — Neal A. Maxwell

My ideal city would be one long main street with no cross streets or side streets to jam up traffic. Just a long one-way street. — Andy Warhol

The driver seems to have no regard for traffic lights, or other cars, or pedestrians, or roads, or even life itself. — Karina Halle

New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous.
But there is one thing about it - once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. — John Steinbeck

In the space of a single year, a crumbling rural village had sprouted an army town, like a great parasitical growth. The former peacetime aspect of the place was barely discernible. The village pond was where the dragoons watered their horses, infantry exercised in the orchards, soldiers lay in the meadows sunning themselves. All the peacetime institutions collapsed, only what was needed for war remained. Hedges and fences were broken or simply torn down for easier access, and everywhere there were large signs giving directions to military traffic. While roofs caved in, and furniture was gradually used up as firewood, telephone lines and electricity cables were installed. Cellars were extended outwards and downwards to make bomb shelters for the residents; the removed earth was dumped in the gardens. The village no longer knew any demarcations or distinctions between thine and mine.
pp. 36-37 — Ernst Junger

It didn't help that Oscar showed up in my dreams constantly ... I kept telling him to get actual, that he'd died, and he'd say, No no, honey, you got it all wrong. Oh, man, look at my hand. And I'd look at his hand that he held out, and I'd grab it, reaching out in dreamtime, doubting him, and it was there all right, but the touch of it, the tight tough skin exactly like Oscar's, would startle me with terror and love, and I'd wake up by myself in my apartment in the dark like a flashlight you've just switched on, with the traffic moving on the street outside the window and the headlights lighting the ceiling, and this big broken hole in me that Oscar had left behind, by dying. — Charles Baxter

The ride back to Kathmandu was comfortable and relaxing. There were more overturned trucks (the gas-powered ones seem to tip the most often, I'm surprised there weren't more explosions), goats being herded across the highway by ancient women, children playing games in traffic, private cars and buses alike pulling over in the most inconvenient places for a picnic or public bath, and best of all the suicidal overtaking maneuvers (or what we would call 'passing') by our bus and others while going downhill at incredible speeds or around hairpin turns uphill with absolutely no power left to actually get around the other vehicle. — Jennifer S. Alderson

There had been no crises of incident, or marked movements of experience such as in Felipe's imaginations of love were essential to the fulness of its growth. This is a common mistake on the part of those who have never felt love's true bonds. Once in those chains, one perceives that they are not of the sort full forged in a day. They are made as the great iron cables are made, on which bridges are swung across the widest water-channels,
not of single huge rods, or bars, which would be stronger, perhaps, to look at; but myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds, hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and jar. Such cables do not break. — Helen Hunt Jackson

I remembered as a child standing in a field where a stream crossed my path, and a yellow iris grew next a background of green rushes. The stream sang as it tumbled over the flat stones. And as a child I thought how strange it was that such things should continue after I had left them, as though when turning a corner with the stream hidden from view, a mist must fall about them, shrouding them carefully, until I should pass again. It was like this now, with the traffic and the moving people. Impossible that they should live while I was no more a part of existence. — Daphne Du Maurier

The city itself swung slowly toward us silent as a dream. No sign of life but puffs of steam from skyscraper chimneys, the motion of the traffic. The mighty towers stood like tombstones in a graveyard, leaning against the sky and waiting for
for what? Someday we'll know. — Edward Abbey

Discomforts are only discomforting when they're an unexpected inconvenience, an unusual annoyance, an unplanned-for irritant. Discomforts are only discomforting when we aren't used to them. But when we deal with the same discomforts every day, they become expected and part of the routine, and we are no longer afflicted with them the way we were. We forget to think about them like the daily disturbances of going to the bathroom, or brushing our teeth, or listening to noisy street traffic. Give your body the chance to harden, your blood to thicken, and your skin to toughen, and you'll find that the human body carries with it a weightless wardrobe. When we're hardy in mind and body, we can select from an array of outfits to comfortably bear most any climate. — Ken Ilgunas

Meanwhile, in the government school, I guess that children were awaiting the arrival of their teachers from the plusher suburbs of Accra, caught in the snarled traffic on the Cape Coast highway, reluctant conscripts to the poor fishing village. No matter, the children could patiently wait, playing on the swings and roundabouts thoughtfully provided by their American donors. — James Tooley

Unhappily, law is by no means confined to its own department. Nor is it merely in some indifferent and debatable views that it has left its proper sphere. It has done more than this. It has acted in direct opposition to its proper end; it has destroyed its own object; it has been employed in annihilating that justice which it ought to have established, in effacing amongst Rights, that limit which was its true mission to respect; it has placed the collective force in the service of those who wish to traffic, without risk, and without scruple, in the persons, the liberty, and the property of others; it has converted plunder into a right, that it may protect it, and lawful defense into a crime, that it may punish it. — Anonymous

This effect would be increased by extraneous circumstances producing other familiar physical sensations - night, cold or the rattling of heavy traffic, for instance." "Yes." "Yes. The old wounds are nearly healed, but not quite. The ordinary exercise of your mental faculties has no bad effect. It is only when you excite the injured part of your brain." "Yes, I see." "Yes. You must avoid these occasions. You must learn to be irresponsible, Lord Peter." "My friends say I'm only too irresponsible already." "Very likely. A sensitive nervous temperament often appears so, owing to its mental nimbleness." "Oh! — Dorothy L. Sayers

There is no doubt that I have lots of words inside me; but at moments, like rush-hour traffic at the mouth of a tunnel, they jam. — John Updike

Any moment now ... " The girl [Calypso] stared out at the water.
No magical raft appeared.
"Maybe it got stuck in a traffic," Leo said. — Rick Riordan

When you're in your lane, there's no traffic. — Ava DuVernay

I've found my calling with Twitter. It's all about the amount of interaction you do, and the traffic you move, and I'm really good at that. I keep going and going and going, and no one can believe that I can keep it up. — Tila Tequila

You're going to stop distracting me while I drive," he said and there was no humor in his voice. "Do you understand?"
"Jeans tight?" I asked, daring him.
Judd narrowed his eyes at me in a rather scary way. Instead of shirking away from him, I remembered how it was his job to get me to Ellsberg safely. Narrowing my eyes, I glared right back at him. We held those angry gazes for a few minutes then he grinned.
"Yes," he said, answering my question as he stared at the now moving traffic. "So shut up, will ya? — Bijou Hunter

To live in the city of crowds and traffic and constant noise, to be always striving, to be in the ceaseless competition for money and status and power, perhaps distracted the mind until it could no longer see - and forgot - the all that is. Or maybe, because of the pace and pressure of that life, sanity depended on blinding oneself to the manifold miracles, astonishments, wonders, and enigmas that comprised the true world. — Dean Koontz

If I found myself alone on planet Earth, no other humans, I would have sex with a monkey in like two minutes. Two minutes. That's really not long enough to be sure you're alone on the Earth, even. That's like ... I walk outside, it's- there's not much traffic. "Oh, my God, it's just me! I'm gonna have sex with a monkey right now. Oh, no-there's a person." — Louis C.K.

Every show is a mess at its first preview. No one's had enough time to rehearse in costumes, traffic patterns backstage haven't been worked out, machinery weighing thousands of pounds is being operated for the first time. And, also, it's the first time all the material you've written is before the public. — Maury Yeston

with a series of taps from his wand. They heaved their luggage back in, put Hedwig on the back seat, and got into the front. "Check that no one's watching," said Ron, starting the ignition with another tap of his wand. Harry stuck his head out of the window: Traffic was rumbling along the main road ahead, but their street was empty. — J.K. Rowling

I stopped right in the middle of the road. There was no traffic. Before heading back towards my flat to get the number I paused for a while, I don't know how long, and stood in what had been the marksmen's sightlines. I turned the palms of my hands outwards, closed my eyes and thought about that memory of just before the accident, being buffeted by wind. Remembering it sent a tingling from the top of my legs to my shoulders and right up into my neck. It lasted for just a moment-but while it did it felt not-neutral. I felt different, intense: both intense and serene at the same time. I remember feeling this way very well: standing there, passive, with my palms turned outwards, feeling intense and serene. — Tom McCarthy

I needed somewhere that wasn't bad. I wanted to be light and happy like you, and I wanted never for you to see the dark. I was scared I would infect you with terrible feelings and pictures in my head of walking out in front of the traffic and - No. That's not for you, see? Not for you to hear. I needed you to be my sunlight, Bessi,' and here George paused and her words became very small, 'I lost mine, I lost it. — Diana Evans

As he was bringing his hands up her sides, his fingers just barely brushed the outer curve of her breasts, and she gasped into his mouth.
Shane immediately sat her upright, and moved to the other end of the couch. His face was flushed; his eyes were bright and no longer looked even a little bit tired. "No,'" he said, and held out his hand like a traffic cop when she tried to scoot closer. "Red flag. If you make that sound again, we are in trouble. Or I am, anyway. — Rachel Caine

You want to achieve your dreams early, right? I know of only one back door; that's HARDWORK. Only few people use that entrance so the advantage is that there is no or less traffic there! — Israelmore Ayivor

I have no idea why people get stuck in traffic, because I work from my desktop — Brahmananda Patra

A red traffic light loomed, and Cecilia slammed her foot on the brake. The fact that Polly no longer wanted a pirate party was breathtakingly insignificant in comparison to that poor man (thirty!) crashing to the ground for the freedom that Cecilia took for granted, but right now, she couldn't pause to honor his memory, because a last-minute change of party theme was unacceptable. That's what happened when you had freedom. You lost your mind over a pirate party. — Liane Moriarty

The future was also the place where the bad stuff waited in ambush. My children were embarking on their futures in fragile vessels, and I trembled. I wanted to remove obstacles, smooth their way, I wanted to change their childhoods. I needed to be right all the time, I wanted them to listen to me, learn from my mistakes, and save themselves a lot of grief. Well, now I know I can control my tongue, my temper, and my appetites, but that's it. I have no effect on weather, traffic, or luck. I can't make good things happen. I can't keep anybody safe. I can't influence the future and I can't fix up the past.
What a relief. — Abigail Thomas

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

When you factor in population growth, it's clear that the mobility model that we have today simply will not work tomorrow. Four billion clean cars on the road are still four billion cars, and a traffic jam with no emissions is still a traffic jam. — Bill Ford

And again the news offered no news: On CNN, a rerun of Larry King interviewing the widowed and the suffering. On CNN2, a rerun of Larry King interviewing a fatherless son. On CNN3, a rerun of Flight 11 flying toward the first tower, in slow motion. On CNN4, a rerun of the tower collapsing, in slow motion, and again the towers fell, again people jumped and died. On CNN5, a rerun of Larry King interviewing a motherless daughter, a daughterless father, interviewing the motherless, fatherless, wifeless, husbandless, childless, shameless
disgusted, Bill pressed POWER and beheaded King, exiled CNN, and the world went dark. They sat relieved in the silence and dark. Not much road traffic now, but somewhere in the distant overhead the honk and flap of southbound geese, instinct bound, in vees for victory. The turkey was still on the table; the sides were still out. Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are tired come home. — Pearl Abraham

The Zen master walks in his garden, alone. There is no traffic there. There is no shopping there. There are only the flowers. — Frederick Lenz

Even at midnight the city groans in the heat. We have had no rain for quite a while. The traffic sounds below ride the night air in waves of trigonometry, the cosine of a siren, the tangent of a sigh, a system, an axis, a logic to this chaos, yes. — Lorrie Moore

In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic, They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time , like the blank clock. No, I shall weave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore. — Stephen Spender

Soovee?" I ask. "Did Mom make it so you can drive yourself?" "Correct." "This is so cool!" says Trip. "Yesterday, Dr. Hayes mounted a range finder to my roof housing a 64-beam laser." So that's what she was doing when she was too busy to look at my rotten Spanish homework. "This laser allows me to generate a detailed 3-D map of my environment," Soovee continues. "I will take that map and instantaneously overlay it on top of high-resolution, real-time traffic maps and produce all the data models I need to drive myself, and you, safely to school." "But what if the police see me not driving?" asks Dad. "No worries," purrs the car. "Mom also tinted the windshield. You can see out, but no one can see in. Why, you could fully recline your seat and take a quick nap." Okay. I know what I want our new science project to be: Soovee - the self-driving electric car! "Sit — James Patterson

There are no traffic jams on the extra mile. — Zig Ziglar

The question rolled around in Vanessa's mind as she drove down Main Street. The sleepy town of Hyattown had changed very little in twelve years. It was still tucked in the foothills of Maryland's Blue Ridge Mountains, surrounded by rolling farmland and thick woods. Apple orchards and dairy cows encroached as close as the town limits, and here, inside those limits, there were no stoplights, no office buildings, no hum of traffic. — Nora Roberts

Nobody gives way to anybody. Everyone just angles, points, dives directly toward his destination, pretending it is an all-or-nothing gamble. People glare at one another and fight for maneuvering space. All parties are equally determined to get the right-of-way
insist on it. They swerve away at the last possible moment, giving scant inches to spare. The victor goes forwards, no time for a victory grin, already engaging in another contest of will. Saigon traffic is Vietnamese life, a continuous charade of posturing, bluffing, fast moves, tenacity and surrenders. — Andrew X. Pham

GONZALO: I' the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
And no sovereignty; -
SEBASTIAN: Yet he would be king on't.
ANTONIO: The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. — William Shakespeare

I shall be as willing as the next man to fall down in worship before the System, if only I can manage to set eyes on it. Hitherto I have had no success; and though I have young legs, I am almost weary from running back and forth ...
Once or twice I have been on the verge of bending the knee. But at the last moment, when I already had my handkerchief spread on the ground, to avoid soiling my trousers, and I made a trusting appeal to one of the initiated who stood by: "Tell me now sincerely, is it entirely finished; for if so I will kneel down before it, even at the risk of ruining a pair of trousers (for on account of the heavy traffic to and from the system, the road has become quite muddy)," - I always receive the same answer: "No, it is not yet quite finished." And so there was another postponement - of the system, and of my homage.
System and finality are pretty much one and the same, so much so that if the system is not finished, there is no system. — Soren Kierkegaard

One final thought. In the years leading up to my trial, whenever I was caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway leading to my cottage, creeping along behind a battered, rust eaten pick-up truck with a sticker on its rear bumper that read JESUS SAVES, I used to think don't count on it, buster. Now I am no longer sure. — Mordecai Richler

If I complain about a traffic jam, I have no one to blame but myself. — Steve Wynn

I read with keen interest the words of a bumper sticker readily visible on the highly polished chrome bumper of a car which was weaving in and out of the traffic stream. The words were these: "Honk if you love Jesus." No one honked. Perhaps each was disturbed by the thoughtless and rude actions of the offending driver. Then, again, would honking be an appropriate manner in which to show one's love for the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the Redeemer of all mankind? Such was not the pattern provided by Jesus of Nazareth. — Thomas S. Monson

They say no one knows if we all see red the same way. Except traffic cops. — Greg Fitzsimmons

Saying this is bad is like saying traffic is bad, or health-care surtaxes, or the hazards of annular fusion: nobody but Ludditic granola-crunching freaks would call bad what no one can imagine being without. — David Foster Wallace

I try so hard, and it is still not working. I wear the same clothes as the others. I say the same words at the same times: good morning, hi, how are you, I'm fine, good night, please, thank you, you're welcome, no thank you, not right now. I obey the traffic laws; I obey the rules. I have ordinary furniture in my apartment, and I play my unusual music very softly or use headphones. But it is not enough. Even as hard as I try, the real people still want me to change, to be like them. — Elizabeth Moon

When persons are present to one another they can function not merely as physical instruments but also as communicative ones. This possibility, no less than the physical one, is fateful for everyone concerned and in every society appears to come under strict normative regulation, giving rise to a kind of communication traffic order ... — Erving Goffman

If you follow Jesus, you'll do what He did. You'll seek to please the heavenly Father first and foremost. You'll care for the poor, you'll wash feet, and you'll offend some Pharisees along the way. You'll also traffic in the miraculous. And it won't just be as an eyewitness. It'll be as a catalyst. Please believe me when I say, you are someone else's miracle! Make no mistake about it: only God can perform miracles. So God gets all of the glory. — Mark Batterson

No one on the street thought anything of the downtown girl dressed in black who had paused in the middle of midtown foot traffic. In her art student camouflage she could walk the entire length of Manhattan and, if not blend in, be classified and therefore ignored. — Alice Sebold

We get mad at someone for cutting us off in traffic or for taking too long to order at Starbucks or for not responding exactly as we see fit, and we have no idea that behind their facade, they may be dealing with some industrial-strength shit. Their lives may be in pieces. They may be in the midst of incalculable tragedy and turmoil, and they may be hanging on to their sanity by a thread. But we don't care. We don't see. We just keep pushing. — Harlan Coben

Usually, there is no equivalent of air traffic control at sea. Some busy areas operate 'traffic separation schemes,' but mostly, ships are treated like cars on roads where there are rules and codes of behavior, and successful, accident-free outcomes depend on everyone respecting them. As on roads, this doesn't always work. — Rose George

4. Full Circle

Today I like the traffic jam.
The engine noises heard in detail.
My whole life, a river of thresholds, stitches itself together
and gazes at me
from everywhere.
I like these places where time kinks and looks back over its shoulder
at itself. It confuses them, who are used to being blurs.
But I'm alright here with my terror. I'm in no hurry.
I get paid by the hour.
I let anybody merge in front of me.
I know there's nowhere to hide. — Richard Cronshey

I wish we had met away from all these battles. I wish we had met in a land of peace without social classes and with no conflicts. I wish we had met in prehistoric times wearing cranberry leaves. I wish we had met when there were no disagreements about our bodies and no doctrinal differences. I wish we had met when the veil was not an issue and when there were no shaving blades, no hair colors and no perfumes to hide your natural smell. I wish we have met when there were no shoes to coerce our steps, no fashion and socks brands to put each of us in a certain social class. I wish we have met when there were no cars and no traffic. I wish we have met when there were no battles to be forced to see you as an unarmed knight with the heresy of currencies. — Jihad Eltabey

Brake lights, brake lights, brake lights; a domino topple of red stop lights ripples back from some non-event up ahead. Some idiot blew his nose too abruptly and a Mexican wave of mini traffic lights all went red in neat little pairs.

There are no green lights on a motorway to tell you that you can go. You just go when you can. Another short burst of hemmed in freedom until the next tsunami of 'stop' floods the road. — Christian Cook