Quotes & Sayings About Not Standing Up

Cecile made it sound like it was no big deal. "I've been fighting for freedom all my life." But she wasn't talking about protest signs, standing up to the Man, and knowing your rights. She was talking about her life. Just her. Not the people. — Rita Williams-Garcia

Memories had come back to Thomas on several occasions. The Changing, the dreams he'd had since, fleeting glimpses here and there, like quick lightning strikes in his mind. And right now, listening to the white-suited man talk, it felt as if he were standing on a cliff and all the answers were just about to float up from the depths for him to see in their entirety. The urge to grasp those answers was almost too strong to keep at bay.
But he was still wary. He knew he'd been a part of it all, had helped design the Maze, had taken over after the original Creators died and kept the program going with new recruits. "I remember enough to be ashamed of myself," he admitted. "But living through this kind of abuse is a lot different than planning it. It's just not right. — James Dashner

She says you're not awake until you're actually out of bed and standing up. — Richelle Mead

We are shut up in school and college recitation rooms for ten to fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. We cannot use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do not know an edible root in the woods. We cannot tell our course by the stars, nor the hour of day by the sun. It is well if we can swim and skate. We are afraid of a horse or a cow, of a dog, of a cat, of a spider. Far better was the Roman rule to teach a boy nothing that he could not learn standing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

This little man was of the order of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant force sufficient to crush him at once. — Charlotte Bronte

I am standing on the seashore. A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. I stand watching her until she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says, She is gone. Gone where? The loss of sight is in me, not in her. Just at the moment when someone says, She is gone, there are others who are watching her coming. Other voices take up the glad shout, Here she comes! That is dying. — Henry Scott Holland

Yet when, one day, standing on the outskirts of Yokohama town, bristling with its display of modern miscellanies, I watched the sunset in your southern sea, and saw its peace and majesty among your pine-clad hills, - with the great Fujiyama growing faint against the golden horizon, like a god overcome with his own radiance, - the music of eternity welled up through the evening silence, and I felt that the sky and the earth and the lyrics of the dawn and the dayfall are with the poets and idealists, and not with the marketmen robustly contemptuous of all sentiment, - that, after the forgetfulness of his own divinity, man will remember again that heaven is always in touch with his world, which can never be abandoned for good to the hounding wolves of the modern era, scenting human blood and howling to the skies. — Rabindranath Tagore

Why does an apple fall when it is ripe? Is it brought down by the force of gravity? Is it because its stalk withers? Because it is dried by the sun, because it grows too heavy, or because the boy standing under the tree wants to eat it? None of these is the cause ... Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill is in the historical sense not free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and preordained from all eternity. — Leo Tolstoy

I might not say it, but I obviously show you how I feel," she says. "Why do the words have to be so important?"

"They just are," he says, standing up and brushing off the back of his jeans. "Not because you're saying them, but because you're not. — Jennifer E. Smith

And do not think you shouldn't be standing on that chair, shouting, "I AM A FEMINIST!" if you are a boy. A male feminist is one of the most glorious end-products of evolution. A male feminist should ABSOLUTELY be on the chair - so we ladies may all toast you, in champagne, before coveting your body wildly. And maybe get you to change that lightbulb, while you're up there. We cannot do it ourselves. There is a big spiderweb on the socket. — Caitlin Moran

I swear, one range fire and you've turned into a timid little baby kitten afraid of his own shadow."
Reza swore under his breath, wishing Emily wasn't standing right there watching Teague show his ass - figuratively, of course. He wondered how long it would be before Teague tried to hit on her.
The thought made Reza's spine stiffen as he glanced over at her.
Emily raised both eyebrows, her lips twitching. "Range fire?"
Heat crawled up Reza's neck, along with a strong desire to throttle Ben Teague. "I may or may not have been involved in an accident involving a small fire here at Fort Hood."
"Ha," Teague snorted and grabbed his helmet. "He burned down three hundred acres of training area last year."
"It was an accident," Reza snarled. — Jessica Scott

Never forget that you are a [child] of God. He loves you. Live by your standards. Stand up for what you believe in. Sometimes it is not easy, and you may be standing alone for a while. Look for friends with integrity and character, then go to them and express appreciation for their examples. You might even find someone who has been feeling as lonely as you. Pray for guidance and protection from the Lord. He will sustain you. He will become a trusted friend, and you will discover that your example will attract many friends who will take courage from your strength of character. — W. Craig Zwick

To ensure Israel's trust in Him rather than in a human king, God gives Israel an economic system that can't support a professional army. After all, somebody has to fund the army. But not in Israel. No taxes are supposed to be collected to support a military - God wants excess money to be given to the poor, not to fund a military (e.g., Deut. 14:29). And when Israel does end up choosing a king, God does not allow him to have the financial means to support an army (Deut. 17).7 Israel's economic system, therefore, is set up so that the nation can't sustain a standing army without violating the system itself. Israel's "army" - if we can even call it an army - is a group of weekend warriors whose skills, or lack thereof, testify to the power of God, who alone ensures victory. — Preston Sprinkle

If I am always standing at the bottom of the mountain longingly looking up, in all probability it is because I have heeded the pillaging dogma of mediocrity which persistently tells me that the dream is not worth the climb. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I am charmed by the idea that there is an activity known as work and another as play, although even in grade school the distinction eluded me. I remember how full of hope I was sitting in first-period home room listening to the teacher divide up our activities into purposeful sections. I got a grip on her process, at last, by picturing it in the following way: A cow stands in clover. When she is milked, that is her work; when she is merely eating, that is her play. But the problem lay, then as now, in the realization that, in any case, she is standing in clover. Not a handsome or elegant analogy, but it approximates for me the habit of reading - standing in a world of clover, the eating of which is occasionally utilitarian, usually nourishing, because that's what one does — Toni Morrison

No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to escape it. No overactivity. They kill you, cut you with knives, shower you with curses. And that somehow cuts your mind off from clearness, and sanity, and self-control, and justice? A man standing by a spring of clear, sweet water and cursing it. While the fresh water keeps on bubbling up. He can shovel mud into it, or dung, and the stream will carry it away, wash itself clean, remain unstained. To have that. Not a cistern but a perpetual spring. How? By working to win your freedom. Hour by hour. Through patience, honesty, humility. — Marcus Aurelius

The outright propagandist sets up in me such a fury of opposition I am not apt to care much whether he has got his facts straight or not. He is like someone standing on your toes between you and an open window, describing the view to you. All I ask of him to do is to open the window, stand out of the way, and let me look at the view for myself. — Katherine Anne Porter

Ye gods! But you're not standing around holding it by the hand all this time. No. [ ... ] [T]he dough takes care of itself. [ ... ] While you cannot speed up the process, you can slow it down at any point by setting the dough in a cooler place [ ... ] then continue where you left off, when you are ready to do so. In other words, you are the boss of that dough. — Julia Child

Being left at the altar was not for sissies. Aside from the humiliation and hurt, there were actual logistics to worry about. Odds were if a guy was willing to leave you standing alone in front of three hundred of your closest friends and relatives, not to mention both your mothers, he wasn't going to sweat the little stuff like returning the gifts and paying the caterer. — Susan Mallery

In association with the ordinary run of men I have had but little to win or to lose ... My companions have with few exceptions exerted no marked influence on me ... So I am standing once more at the point where I must begin in another way. I shall now try to look calmly at myself and begin to act inwardly; for only in this way will I be able ... to call myself 'I' in a profounder sense ... So let the die be cast - I am crossing the Rubicon. This road no doubt leads me into battle, but I will not give up. — Soren Kierkegaard

Her eyes rounded. "They don't open until eleven."
"Unless you're me, and you strike up a conversation with the prep cook who starts work at seven."
"Ah."
"Get your mind out of the gutter," he said, uncurling his forefinger from around his own cup to point it at her. "His name is George and he has a wife and three kids."
"My mind's not in the gutter!" Well, not since she woke from a twenty-minute midnight doze during which she'd imagined herself stretched out on her bed, Gage standing at its foot, slowing stripping off his clothes.
He grinned at her, then reached into his front pocket to pull free a slim camera. Still juggling his coffee, he managed to bring the viewfinder to his eye and snap a shot. "I'll call it 'Guilty as Charged.'"
"That's an invasion of privacy," she said, frowning at him.
"I think that blush indicates that you've been mentally invading mine."
"Gage! — Christie Ridgway

I sat up so fast I practically broke the sound barrier, but it was Cal standing in my doorway, not Archer. I heaved a huge sigh, one of relief, and not even a little bit of disappointment.
Of course, once I'd wrapped my mind around the fact that it was Cal and not Archer standing in my bedroom, it dawned on me that Cal was standing in my bedroom. — Rachel Hawkins

Blue was standing over her, shaking out his wet hair like an annoying blue dog. Beads of water clung to the muscle of his chest. He was wiry, not buff like Henley, but his body made up for size with definition.
Nothing could make up for his personality.
"Stop dripping on me," Mira snapped. — Sarah Cross

But I guess what I mean is, being afraid can't be a reason for us not to do something now ... '
'Our voice will only get louder the more of us we bring together. — Alexandra Bracken

I park my bike in her driveway and ring her doorbell. I clear my throat so I don't choke on my words. Mierda, what am I gonna say to her? And why am I feeling all insecure, like I need to impress her because she'll judge me?
Nobody answers. I ring again.
Where's a servant or butler to answer the door when you need one? Just as I'm about to give up and slap myself with a big dose of what-the-fuck-do-I-think-I'm-doing, the door opens. Standing before me is an older version of Brittany. Obviously her mom. When she takes one look at me, her disappointing sneer is obvious.
"Can I help you?" she asks with an attitude. I sense either she expects me to be part of the gardening crew or someone going door-to-door harassing people. "We have a 'no soliciting policy' in this neighborhood."
"I'm, uh, not here to solicit anythin'. My name's Alex. I just wanted to know if Brittany was, uh, at home?" Oh, great. Now I'm mumbling uh's every two seconds. — Simone Elkeles

I still like boiled potatoes with the skins on," he said, "and I do not want a man standing in back of my chair, laughing up his sleeve at me while I am taking the potatoes' jackets off." Of pleasure and material things he was wary. "I have never known what to do with money after my expenses were paid. I can't squander it on myself without hurting myself," he said, "and nobody wants to do that. — David Halberstam

Here you had John McCain and Lindsey Graham in a very principled way standing up and defending Barack Obama. You had people like Gene Robinson and a lot of other liberals, who said, and this I personally agree with, however flawed Rand Paul was as a messenger, we need a debate about this. The administration has not been forthcoming enough about its drone policy. — E. J. Dionne

There was a man that hated his footprints and his shadow, so one day he thought that if he ran fast enough, his footprints and shadow would not be able to follow him and then he never ever had to look at them again. He ran and he ran as fast as he could, but the shadow and the footprints had no problems keeping up to him. And he ran even faster and all of a sudden he fell dead to the ground. But if he been standing still there hadn't been any footprints and if he had been resting under a tree his shadow had been swallowed of the trees shadow. — Benjamin Hoff

Staying silent is like a slow growing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for - YOU. — Shannon L. Alder

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up. — Ernest Hemingway,

We're an Ag college," I explain to them. "Not as good as the one in Yanco but we have livestock."
"Cows?" Anson Choi asks, covering his nose.
"Pigs, too. And horses. Great for growing tomatoes.
The Cadets are wanna-be soldiers. City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure.
"I'm going to throw up," one of the guys says.
"Don't feel too bad," I explain. "Some of our lot did while they were laying out this stuff. Actually, right there where you're standing. — Melina Marchetta

But now, all are tied up to the ordinary standing rule of the written word and must not expect any such extraordinary revelations from God. The way we now have to know the will of God concerning us in difficult cases is to search and study the Scriptures, and where we find no particular rule to guide us in this or that particular case, there we are to apply general rules and govern ourselves according to the analogy and proportion they bear towards each other. — John Flavel

What?"
Jace was standing up now.
"When you first step off. Bend the knees right away. Otherwise you did pretty well."
"But what about Isabelle?" Simon asked. "What do I do?"
"I have no idea," Jace said.
"So you just came here to torture me and talk about yourself?" Simon demanded.
"Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon," said Jace. "You may not remember, but that's kind of our thing."
With that, he walked away, clearly aware of the admiring glances that followed his every step. — Cassandra Clare

Successful or not, acts of physical courage always bring honor. It is the smaller forms of valor - standing up for principle at the risk of social disapproval, economic loss or injury to career - that require the greatest moral will power. Since there is usually little upside to winning and a significant and often lasting downside to losing, moral courage often requires as much character as physical bravery. — Michael Josephson

The man stands behind the man.
The seated man thinks,
"For heaven's sake, stop standing behind me.
You are driving me mad. It is February and it is impossible.
Someone has thrown onion skins all over the stairwell. Now I will have to clean them up - though I love to sweep. But still, it is disgusting."
But all he says is "I have to go soon."
Why can't people tell the truth?
It is impossible not to lie.
It is February and not lying is impossible. — Maira Kalman

Luc sighed as he raised his hands. "Look, this is not a trap, a test, or a drill. Archer's here, too. He's waiting for us, actually, and I'm more than willing to explain everything to you, but I'm not doing it standing here. Not when I found a Lunchables just a few minutes before you guys showed up, and I'm ready to make myself a delicious buffet of ham and cheese on crackers.
I stared at him.
"What? It's the kind that has Oreo cookies included," he replied. "That shit is banging. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Snow White: You're still lost in the forest, but lonely, lost girls like us can be rescued. You are standing on the edge of greatness.
Virginia: I'm not. I'm useless. I'm a nobody.
Snow White: You will one day be like me, a great advisor to other lost girls. Now stand up. — Kathryn Wesley

Hell," he said, looking down his body. "I shouldn't have thought about that just yet. Now Alice is going to come out of the bathroom and see you standing there being demanding. That's not very gentlemanly ... "
This just made him even harder.
With a sigh, he snatched up her pirate hat and slapped it over his crotch. "There. Now we can at least present the semblance of a man who doesn't have a single track mind. — Katie MacAlister

She frowned, thinking of going down there and explaining herself all over again, reliving the horror of finding Mimi's body and trying not to think of how she'd looked when they'd dragged her up and out of the ravine. No sooner had she thought it than she heard Mimi's voice, chastising her over a year ago.

"You hide from life, Catherine. Even when you're in the middle of it, standing toe to toe with all the bad guys you bring in, you manage to keep an emotional distance. I understand why you do it, but ultimately, you're the one who will suffer. You're the one who's going to grow old alone."

Cat blinked back tears, remembering what she'd told her.

I won't be alone, Mimi. I'll always have you.

Obviously she had been wrong. — Sharon Sala

I think of my films as not necessarily political but more moral. Between my father, my stepfather, and my mother - they all felt pretty passionately about the importance of standing up and doing the right thing, and none of them were suck-ups. What motivates me is usually abuse of power. — Alex Gibney

Most of the time it's the parents who recognise me. They try to tell their kids, 'Look, it's Giselle,' and I say, 'No, no, no, don't ruin this for them,' because I'm usually standing there with my hair sideways and no make-up on. And the kid is saying, 'That is not Giselle. No way. That is some worn-out girl who really needs a bath.' — Amy Adams

Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. — Dinesh D'Souza

So, these tools, like light switches, exist. When fear arises, remember that it is a hallucinated snake or that it's not useful or that it's not real. All three work. There's many more, ones we can come up with ourselves, if we wish. As long as it works, it's valid. Key is this, when in darkness, have a light switch you've chosen standing by. — Kamal Ravikant

I see the eight of us in the Annex as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds. The perfectly round spot on which we're standing is still safe, but the clouds are moving in on us, and the ring between us and the approaching danger is being pulled tighter and tighter. We're surrounded by darkness and danger, and in our desperate search for a way out we keep bumping into each other. We look at the fighting down below and the peace and beauty up above. In the meantime, we've been cut off by the dark mass of clouds, so that we can go neither up nor down. It looms before us like an impenetrable wall, trying to crush us, but not yet able to. I can only cry out and implore, Oh, ring, ring, open wide and let us out! — Anne Frank

Most people miss their whole lives, you know. Listen, life isn't when you are standing on top of a mountain looking at a sunset. Life isn't waiting at the alter or the moment your child is born or that time you were swimming in a deep water and a dolphin came up alongside you. These are fragments. 10 or 12 grains of sand spread throughout your entire existence. These are not life. Life is brushing your teeth or making a sandwich or watching the news or waiting for the bus. Or walking. Every day, thousands of tiny events happen and if you're not watching, if you're not careful, if you don't capture them and make them COUNT, your could miss it. You could miss your whole life. — Toni Jordan

The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles ... when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones. — Flann O'Brien

I'm responsible for what i did. I'm not responible for what every black male did. Yes! I call myself a THUG, because i grew up in the ghetto. And im still standing. — Tupac Shakur

Al right, calm down. Fuck," Smithie said.
It was then I felt something not unpleasant but somewhat scary slide across my skin and I looked up to see the gang of hotties al standing, watching and every last one of them flashing a grin.
"What are you lookin' at?" I snapped, not to any one of them in particular, but in their general direction.
Don't ask me why I didn't run and hide in the books, I just didn't. I guess that wasn't me anymore.
"Babe, you just made me a regular," Mace said. — Kristen Ashley

When a judge walks into the room, and everybody stands up, you're not standing up to that guy, you're standing up to the robe that he's wearing and the role that he's going to play. What makes him worthy of that role is his integrity, as a representative of the principles of that role, and not some group of prejudices of his own. So what you're standing up to is a mythological character. I imagine some kings and queens are the most stupid, absurd, banal people you could run into, probably interested only in horses and women, you know. But you're not responding to them as personalities, you're responding to them in their mythological roles. When someone becomes a judge, or President of the United States, the man is no longer that man, he's the representative of an eternal office; he has to sacrifice his personal desires and even life possibilities to the role that he now signifies. — Joseph Campbell

People always expect Hulk Hogan to be standing up straight, or to have the bandanna on, or to not have my arms covered up. If I have an extra large shirt on people go 'oh yeah you look small.' It kind of ruins the mystique. — Hulk Hogan

My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whining about for years. — Kurt Cobain

Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. — David Foster Wallace

And as we walk back down the street, me gingerly clutching what at this point constitutes my entire collection, my father says, 'One day, when you're all grown up and I'm not here any more, you'll remember the sunny day we went to the market together and bought a boat.' My throat feels tight because, as soon as he says it, I am already there. Standing on another street, without my father, trying to get back. And yet I'm here, with him. So I try to soak up every aspect of the moment, to help me get back when I need to. I feel the weight of the chunky parcel under my arm, and the warmth of the sun, and my father's hand in mine. I smell the flowers with their sharp undertang of cheap hot dog, and taste the slick of toffee on my teeth, and hear the chattering hagglers. I feel the joy of an adventurous Saturday with my father and no school, and I feel the sadness of looking back when it is all gone. When he is gone. — Victoria Coren

Apathy in general; people who are not standing up for what they believe in because somebody's got a louder mouth than them; it doesn't make any sense. — Avan Jogia

I jumped up and "casually" strolled a bit closer. I blinked my eyes in the sun. It couldn't be, could it? But it was.
Gabe.
...
"You know, if you're going to stalk someone, you should be less obvious."
I wheeled around. It was Todd. He'd snuck up on me.
He said, "For starters, try not to standing in the middle of a field, gawking at your prey."
I kicked at a dusty clump of grass. "Gawking? I ... I'm ... not gawking. I was just watching your girlfired putting the moves on someone else. Jealous?"
"Oh Gabe Webber?" Todd laughed. "Uh ... no."
I shielded my eyes from the sun. "Why? What's wrong with Gabe Webber?"
"Nothing. As in, there's nothing there. He has the personality of dry toast."
How dare he insult my Gabe? "Oh yes. I forgot. You prefer the company of assholes and jerks. As they say, 'Birds of a feather ... '"
"That must be why you hang around. — Kristin Walker

We get a fat-slicked chocolate chip muffin, which we heat up in the rotating toaster machine. Standing next to it, the heat radiating off its coils, I imagine myself suffering eternal damnation for sins not yet clear. — Megan Abbott

Everybody keeps calling for Excellence excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent, the other shout goes up: "Elitism!" And whatever produced that thing, whoever praises that result, is promptly put down. "Standing out" is undemocratic. — Jacques Barzun

No." Laurence said, "I mean to retire when we have returned. I have enough money to keep Temeraire now, and enough of a countenance to ask my brother to put us up on one of the farms."

Or they might return to Australia, or to China. Temeraire has every right to ask that of him now that the war was won. Laurence did not mean to refuse him, he only hoped to go back to Wollaton Hall first and find a way to carry it with him somehow. He longed in a deep inward part for Britain, for home, and the house standing at twilight with all the windows lit. A child's memory of peace. He would even be grateful there for the counterfeit honors that had been heaped onto his head, if they gave his mother some peace, and his brother need not be ashamed to give him a field for Temeraire to sleep in, for a little while. — Naomi Novik

My father is standing at the sink wearing a too-tight long-sleeved red T-Shirt, a pair of too-high jeans and sporting the type of orange glow that belongs only on Chernobyl victims. Plus his hair looks like an oil spill.
'Hey you,' he says, washing what looks to be some carrots under the sink. Are they carrots or are they parsnips reflecting the sheen of my father's tangerine skin? Hard to tell.
'You've fake tanned yourself again,' I say - it's a statement, not a question. 'Too much?' he says, innocently. 'I just didn't want to be one of those pasty office workers and I thought it wouldn't hurt to back up last week's application with another hit.'
'Dad, you look-'
'Sun kissed?'
'Radioactive. And what the hell happened to your hands?'
- Cat — Rebecca Sparrow

Wyndham was a bore, in his humble opinion, but everything he did, every last decision and action - they were for others. It was all for Wyndham - the heritage, not the person. It was impossible not to respect such a man.
But this was different. The duke wasn't standing up for his people, he was standing up for one person. It was a far more difficult thing to do. — Julia Quinn

Terror is not a new weapon. Throughout history it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example. But inevitably they fail, either because men are not afraid to die for a life worth living, or because the terrorists themselves came to realize that free men cannot be frightened by threats, and that aggression would meet its own response. And it is in the light of that history that every nation today should know, be he friend or foe, that the United States has both the will and the weapons to join free men in standing up to their responsibilities. — John F. Kennedy

I have a surprise for you," the Beast had said, in his usual brusque tone.
Belle had just come in from feeding her horse, Philippe, and was standing by the kitchen's back door, shaking snow from her cloak. She'd taken one look at him - at the scowl on his face, at his clenched paws, at his awkward stance - and said, "No, thank you."
The Beast had blinked, taken aback by her refusal. His scowl had deepened. "I said, I have a surprise for you!"
"And I heard you," Belle had replied, "but I've had enough surprises to last me a lifetime. Including cold, dark cells, packs of wolves, and tantrums."
"Tantrums? Tantrums?" the Beast had sputtered. "I can't believe ... How can you say ... That wasn't a tantrum! And it wasn't my fault! I told you not to go to the West Wing. I told you -"
Belle had given him a sidelong look. "You're right. What was I thinking? You'd never throw a tantrum. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to hang up my cloak. — Jennifer Donnelly

It was time to stand up for herself and move forward, not cower in submission as other people made bad decisions for her. — Angie Stanton

You want to be commander in chief, you can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient. — Barack Obama

I envy the music lovers hear. I see them walking hand in hand, standing close to each other in a queue at a theater or subway station, heads touching while they sit on a park bench, and I ache to hear the song that plays between them: The stirring chords of romance's first bloom, the stately airs that whisper between a couple long in love. You can see it in the way they look at each other ... you can almost hear it. Almost, but not quite, because the music belongs to them and all you can have of it is a vague echo that rises up from the bittersweet murmur and shuffle of your own memories. — Charles De Lint

We talk of strong personalities, and they are strong, until the not-every-day when we see them as we might see one woman alone in a desert, and know that all the strength we thought we knew was only courage, only her lone song echoing among the stones; and then at last when we have understood this and made up our minds to hear the song and admire its courage and its sweetness, we wait for the next note and it does not come. The last word, with its pure tone, echoes and fades and is gone, and we realize - only then - that we do not know what it was, that we have been too intent on the melody to hear even one word. We go then to find the singer, thinking she will be standing where we last saw her. There are only bones and sand and a few faded rags. — Gene Wolfe

There's a saying in Africa, if you give a woman empowerment, you empower a community, you empower men, you empower man. When women become empowered and live in their strength it's beneficiary to others, and I think as young women today we sometimes forget that we are standing on the struggle of other women. Those women had to stand up to make a change, and they were not popular, and now we're making them unpopular again. — Danai Gurira

His slut of a cousin, his cocksucking, suit-wearing, Montblanc-up-theass cousin Saxton the Magnificent, was standing next to the queen, looking like a combination of Cary Grant and some model in a goddamn cologne ad.
Not that Qhuinn was bitter.
Because the guy was sharing Blay's bed.
Nah.
Nope. Not at all. — J.R. Ward

He looked up as the party emerged and nickered a soft hello to his master, who was dressed in an unfamiliar green cloak and had dirt plastered on his face. Halt glanced at him, brow furrowed, and silently mouthed the words 'shut up'. Abelardshook his mane, which was as close as a horse could come to shruging, and turned away.
'My horse recognized me,' Halt said accusingly out of the side of his mouth to Horace.
Horace glanced at the small shagging horse, standing beside his own massive battlehorse.
'Mine didn't,' he replied. 'So that's a fifty-fifty result.'
'I think I'd like odds better than that,' Halt replied.
Horace suppressed a grin. 'Don't worry. He can probably smell you.'
'I can smell myself,' Halt replied acerbically. 'I smell of tea and soot.'
Horace thought it was wiser not to reply to that. — John Flanagan

The whole incident could not have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. — George Orwell

It's true that he would come to himself at once, and yet, if he were asked what he had been thinking about while standing there, he would most likely not remember, but would most likely keep hidden away in himself the impression he had been under while contemplating. These impressions are dear to him, and he is most likely storing them up imperceptibly and even without realizing it - why and what for, of course, he does not know either; perhaps suddenly, having stored up his impressions over many years, he will drop everything and wander off to Jerusalem to save his soul, or perhaps he will suddenly burn down his native village, or perhaps he will do both. There are plenty of contemplators among the people. Most likely Smerdyakov, too, was such a contemplator, and most likely he, too, was greedily storing up his impressions, almost without knowing why himself. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

'WASP' is the only ethnic term that is in fact a term of class, apart from redneck, which is another word for the same group but who are in the lower social strata, so it's inexplicably tied up with social standing and culture and history in a way that the other hyphenations just are not. — Christopher Hitchens

He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss, that I'm about to fall down into him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.
"Todd," I say again, a catch in my voice. "On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?"
He's shaking his head slowly. "I've done terrible things, Viola. Terrible things-"
"We all fall, you said." I'm gripping his hand now. "We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again. — Patrick Ness

Citizenship means standing up for the lives that gun violence steals from us each day. I have seen the courage of parents, students, pastors, and police officers all over this country who say 'we are not afraid,' and I intend to keep trying, with or without Congress, to help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters, shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook. — Barack Obama

Give voice to what you know to be true, and do not be afraid of being disliked or exiled. I think that's the hard work of standing up for what you see. — Eve Ensler

Finally, I found what seemed at the time to be a lid of some sort. Presuming it was a toilet seat (but not really caring one way or the other) I lifted it up, then dropped my shorts and began to piss. Ahhh ... success. Then I stumbled back to bed and passed out. It wasn't until the next morning that I realized what had actually happened. I woke to the sight of Junior standing over my bed with a look of disgust on his face. Hey, man. Did you pee in my suitcase? — Dave Mustaine

Think back for a moment on your own history
not just where you were born or where you grew up, but the circumstances that contributed to your being right here, right now. What were the moments along the way that wounded or scared you? Chances are, you've had a few. But here's what's remarkable: You are still here, still standing. — Oprah Winfrey

I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organised religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptised. — Lance Armstrong

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. — C.S. Lewis

Week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night-cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others. Sometimes blazing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats; sometimes lying in bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen was in pawn; sometimes drinking Champagne and Tokay with Betty Careless; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge island, to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste; they knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew comfort. These men were irreclaimable. They looked on a regular and frugal life with the same aversion which an old gipsy or a Mohawk hunter feels for a stationary abode, and for the restraints and securities of civilised communities. They were as untameable, as much wedded to their desolate freedom, as the wild ass. — Samuel Johnson

About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service. — Mahatma Gandhi

Question: how can one manage not to lose time? Answer: experience it at its full length. Means: spend days in the dentist's waiting room on an uncomfortable chair; live on one's balcony on a Sunday afternoon; listen to lectures in a language that one does not understand, choose the most roundabout and least convenient routes on the railway (and, naturally, travel standing up); queue at the box-office for theatres and so on and not take one's seat; etc. — Albert Camus

This was Barrington Erle, a politician of long standing, who was still looked upon by many as a young man, because he had always been known as a young man, and because he had never done anything to compromise his position in that respect. He had not married, or settled himself down in a house of his own, or become subject to the gout, or given up being careful about the fitting of his clothes. — Anthony Trollope

I gazed at Nina and Theodore standing now before the window about to say their vows, or as Nina had phrased it, whatever words their hearts gave them at the moment, and I thought it just as well Mother was not here. She would've expected Nina to be in ivory lace, perhaps blue linen, carrying roses or lilies, but Nina had dismissed all of that as unoriginal and embarked on a wedding designed to shock the masses. She was wearing a brown dress made from free-labor cotton with a broad white sash and white gloves, and she'd matched up Theodore in a brown coat, a white vest, and beige pantaloons. She clutched a handful of white rhododendrons cut fresh from the backyard, and I noticed she'd tucked a sprig in the button hole of Theodore's coat. Mother wouldn't have made it past the brown dress, much less the opening prayer, which had been delivered by a Negro minister. — Sue Monk Kidd

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

Some primary reasons that both Plato and Aristotle had for believing in God were utterly erroneous - simple errors caused by our being stuck to the planet and misled by the sensation that the planet is standing still. If they had been aware that the Earth spins, they would have understood that, by and large, we are making our own light show in the night sky. As it was, the precision of the movements of all the stars seemed astonishing. If we knew how we lined up among the planets, their motion would not seem so strange and willful. Also, had the philosophers been able to leave planet Earth for a jaunt in outer space, they could have seen that, at a distance from gravity and atmosphere, moving things tend to keep moving, without any need for an impelling force. From out there, the motion of the planets would seem natural as well. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

She carried a scabbedover wound on her hip where her mate had bitten her two weeks before somewhere in the mountains of Sonora. He'd bitten her because she would not leave him. Standing with one forefoot in the jaws of a steeltrap and snarling at her to drive her off where she lay just beyond the reach of the chain. She'd flattened her ears and whined and she would not leave. In the morning they came on horses. She watched from a slope a hundred yards away as he stood up to meet them. — Cormac McCarthy

sighed, smirking and rolling her eyes in friendly, amused exasperation. Grabbing his shirt, she pulled him up to her. His hands caught her shoulders, pulling her even closer. They kissed. It was definitely not one-sided, or platonic. Wow. Um. When they let go, Will gave me a playful nod. "I've got a job to do." He ran off so fast that he almost disappeared. All he left was the little white fortune card, fluttering to the floor. Cassie crouched down to pick it up. With that same bland, cynical smirk she looked at it, then flipped it around in her fingers for me to read: 'In six minutes, you will kiss the girl standing next to you. — Richard Roberts

I realized that the childish impression I had always had of my father, as Just Lawgiver, was entirely wrong. We were utterly dependent on this man, who was not only deluded and ignorant, but incompetent in every way. What was more, I knew that my mother was incapable of standing up to him. It was like walking into the cockpit of an airplane and finding the pilot and co-pilot passed out drunk in their seats. And standing outside the Lyceum, I was struck with a black, incredulous horror, which in fact was not at all unlike the horror I had felt at twelve, sitting on a bar stool in our sunny little kitchen in Plano. Who is in control here? I thought, dismayed. Who is flying this plane? — Donna Tartt

Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. — St. George Tucker

Standing up for yourself doesn't always involve verbal confrontation. Sometimes it's about not wasting energy on people who are negative. — Sherry Argov

I ached for him, my stomach twisting painfully. He looked so desolate standing there alone facing a mad queen and several thousand angry fey. His voice was flat and resigned, as if he'd been pushed into a corner and had given up, not caring what happened next. — Julie Kagawa

Never give anyone permission to hurt your feelings. Always face them by standing up for what is right and you will feel strong. If you do not stand strong, people will pity you, and then you lose something adults call dignity. Never accept pity. No one on earth is better than anyone else. — John J. Siefring

I don't even like the word 'indoors'. It doesn't make sense. According to you right now, by stepping through the doorway I'd be indoors. Yet I wouldn't actually be standing in the doorway. If it's supposed to refer to being inside a building, then they shouldn't have used the word 'door,' since last time I checked, doors don't make up every square inch of a building! And I'd assume that now, since I'm not indoors, you'd say I'm 'out of doors', right? But, shouldn't out of doors just be everywhere that's not directly under a door? You know what, from now on I insist that everyone refer to being in a building as being 'under-roof'. — Natalie Bina

It is not wealth, it is not station, it is not social standing and ambition which can make us worthy of the Jewish name, of the Jewish heritage. To be worthy of them, we must live up to and with them. We must regard ourselves their custodians. — Louis D. Brandeis

Giuseppe would miss them as well, but in a different way than he would miss the city. A city would stay the same. The same buildings. The same streets. Not forever, but for a great long while. But Frederick and Hannah would never again be the people they were right now, standing on the dock, wishing him farewell. Tomorrow they would wake up and be a little bit different and a little bit different the day after that, and in no time they might become people he did not recognize. Giuseppe knew it because they were already different from when he had first met them. He knew it because he was different from when they had first met him. — Matthew J. Kirby

And let us be seated, gentlemen. Drinking standing up, in a rush and without due reverence, does not become the nobility.' They — Andrzej Sapkowski

He was not afraid. At every moment Nature signified by some laughing hint like that gold spot which went round the wall
there, there, there
her determination to show, by brandishing her plumes, shaking her tresses, flinging her mantle this way and that, beautifully, always beautifully, and standing close up to breathe through her hollowed hands Shakespeare's words, her meaning. — Virginia Woolf

Fresh proof of the risks you run in writing about players, and of the advisability of not standing to leeward of their self-esteem when one has had the misfortune to wound it in the slightest degree. When you criticize a singer, you do not have his colleagues up in arms against you. Indeed, they generally feel that you have not been severe enough. But the virtuoso instrumentalist who belongs to a well-known musical organization always claims that in criticizing him you are 'insulting' the whole institution, and though the contention is absurd he sometimes succeeds in making the other players believe it. — Hector Berlioz

Even so, I was proud of myself for taking action at all. I didn't hide or run away or pretend the ugliness didn't happen. I stood up and said something that was true. I said it out loud, and by doing so, I was standing up for lots of people, not just me. — Lauren Myracle