Oiled Quotes & Sayings

Affenlight leaned across it his wrist brushed against the mouse that was tethered to Owen's computer. With a whir the screen came to life. He couldn't help but look. Open in the internet browser was a picture of a man, a muscled, bronzed, hairless, oiled twentysomething man, sprawled in a wooden chair with one hand cupped over the tip of his erect and — Chad Harbach

Throughout the course of the day, Bobby Tom's irritation over his artificially oiled and dirt-smeared chest and his unzipped jeans had flared into righteous indignation. They were treating him like a sex object! It was damned demeaning, that's what it was, being reduced to a set of oil pecs and a tight ass. Shit. A dozen years in the NFL, and this was what it had all come down to. Pecs and ass. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one - after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape? — Neil Gaiman

More is more and less is less. In other words, the more you bring into your life, the more you have to maintain. If you are accumulating things, the initial purchase is just the beginning. In addition to any debt you took on to make the purchase, this new item you now own may need to be stored, dusted, watered, cleaned, oiled, tightened, filled, emptied, refilled, tuned, insured, renewed - or any number of other time-consuming (and possibly expensive) maintenance chores. If you avoid the purchase altogether, you cut out the chain reaction of obligations to this thing. — Cristin Frank

Young men seemed to collect by her side, ready with drinks and conversation. She tanned quickly and easily, her delicate limbs oiled and gleaming. In the evening, she made the most of her new tan in low-cut clinging evening dresses in white or black. — Kathleen Tessaro

One of the few graces of getting old-and God knows there are few graces-is that if you've worked hard and kept your nose to the grindstone, something happens: The body gets old but the creative mechanism is refreshed, smoothed and oiled and honed. That is the grace. That is what's happening to me. — Maurice Sendak

The habit of paying compliments kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense. — Charles Dickens

So many people think buckets of money will solve or eliminate the stresses in life. Such is not the case. More is more and less is less. In other words, the more you bring into your life, the more you have to maintain. If you are accumulating things, the initial purchase is just the beginning. In addition to any debt you took on to make the purchase, this new item you now own may need to be stored, dusted, watered, cleaned, oiled, tightened, filled, emptied, refilled, tuned, insured, renewed - or any number of other time-consuming (and possibly expensive) maintenance chores. If you avoid the purchase altogether, you cut out the chain reaction of obligations to this thing. So — Cristin Frank

Damen's grip tightened in helpless reflex, his forehead bent to Laurent's neck as the heat of that admission pulsed through him. He wanted Laurent fully against him. He wanted to feel every cooperative muscle, every encouraging movement, so that every time he looked at Laurent he would remember that he had been like this. His arm slid around Laurent's chest, thigh fit against thigh. Damen's grip, still oiled, was wrapped around the hottest, most honest part of Laurent. Laurent's body responded, moving, finding its own pleasure. They were moving together. It — C.S. Pacat

Before every show, I would call my mother and say, 'Mummy, I don't know how I will sing today.' But that would change as soon as I went on stage and would merge with my music. She is my best ally, and I don't want to lose her. Nobody other than her would be concerned if I had eaten or had oiled my hair. She is my queen. — Sonu Nigam

The tribe of clerks was an obvious one ... the junior clerks of flash houses
young gentlemen with tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled hair, and supercilious lips. Setting aside a certain dapperness of carriage, which may be termed [i]deskism[/i] for want of a better word, the manner of these persons seemed to be an exact fac-simile of what had been the perfection of [i]bon ton[/i] about twelve or eighteen months before. — Edgar Allan Poe

He was laughing, silently, and then we were both laughing, and then something changed. It was as if I had been watching the world through oiled parchment or smoked glass, which was yanked abruptly away. Everything grew very clear and bright; the music burst forth in majesty; we stood still and the room turned around us; and there was Kiggs, right in the middle of all of it, laughing. — Rachel Hartman

I came from Bill Blass, where it was a well-oiled machine and if I said I needed a fabric, it was done. Now, I have to budget everything. I have to take on the role not just as a designer but a business. But I'm a glass half-full kind of guy. — Prabal Gurung

He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower. — James Joyce

Swords were brought out, guns oiled and made ready, and everything was in a bustle when the old Lexington dropped her anchor on January 26, 1847, in Monterey Bay, after a voyage of one hundred and ninety-eight days from New York. Everything on shore looked bright and beautiful, the hills covered with grass and flowers, the live oaks so serene and homelike, and the low adobe houses, with red-tiled roofs and whitened walls, contrasted well with the dark pine trees behind, making a decidedly good impression upon us who had come so far to spy out the land. Nothing could be more peaceful in its looks than Monterey in January, 1847. — William T. Sherman

Both slaves had been oiled until their flesh shined like polished ebony, outlining every detail of their muscles. — Myra Hargrave McIlvain

The Sanctuary and its deities were the main source of the city's income. Visitors paid to enter the city. They had to buy the correct apparel to perform rituals in the Sanctuary. They had to pay again to acquire offerings for the gods. Mecca was not just one of the world's oldest shrines, it was a citadel for capitalism. The people who oiled the wheels of Meccan religious life were known as Hums. — Ziauddin Sardar

Without a word she swivels, as if she's voice activated, as if she's on little oiled wheels, as if she's on top of a music box. I resent this grace of hers. I resent her meek head, bowed as if into a heavy wind. But there is no wind. — Margaret Atwood

He opened the gun box, lifted out the sections of his own gun, for comparison. They slid together with well-oiled clicks. Laying the two guns side by side, he experienced a momentary lapse of faith. They looked nothing like a pair. His own gun looked fat and polished. It almost breathed as it lay on the slab. Bertie's gun looked like a sketch, or a preliminary model done in cheap materials to get the shape right and then discarded. — Helen Simonson

Her flying machine was packed inside, wrapped in layers of oiled cloths. It was all she could carry. — Aya Ling

I'm used to being part of 'Game of Thrones' and going into something where you're a small part of something else. You don't want to hold anything up because they've got such a well-oiled machine going. — Maisie Williams

One evening at a hotel in New York I flipped around the television channels. Suddenly there on the public access channel was a voluptuous young woman, naked, her body oiled, writhing on the floor while fondling herself intimately ... I watched for some time
riveted by the sociological significance of it all. — Robert Bork

When you do a song new live on stage, it's kind of a bit weird until it gets worn in, you know, like oiled up a bit. It's still a little bit stiff until you really thrashed at it for a few weeks. — Jeff Lynne

Below the waterbag were his guns,finely weighted to his hand. The two belts crisscrossed above his crotch. The holsters were oiled too deeply for even this Philistine sun to crack. The stocks of the guns were sandalwood, yellow and finely grained. The holsters were tied down with
raw hide cord, and they swung heavily against his hips. The brass casings of the cartridges looped into the gun belts twinkled and flashed and heliographed in the sun. The leather made subtle
creaking noises. The guns themselves made no noise. — Stephen King

Here was a man who sincerely did not mind what people thought of him, and so convention had no hold on him; he was like a wrestler whose body is oiled; you could not get a grip on him; it gave him a freedom which was an outrage. — W. Somerset Maugham

Shadow was in a dark place, and the thing staring at him wore a buffalo's head, rank and furry with huge wet eyes. Its body was a man's body, oiled and slick. — Neil Gaiman

If you keep your feathers well oiled the water of criticism will run off as from a duck's back. — Ellen Swallow Richards

If you can pick the baby up without him squirting our of your hands like a bar of soap in the shower, he's not oiled up enough. — James Lileks

Of all the weapons discussed in this book, nothing is more important than your primary firearm. Keep it cleaned, keep it oiled, keep it loaded, keep it close. With a cool head, steady hand, and plenty of ammunition, one human is more than a match for an army of zombies. — Max Brooks

'Fast & Furious' is a well-oiled machine. Those guys really know what they're doing. The guys that work behind the scenes are just as important as the ones in front of the cameras. They are car enthusiasts. They live and breathe this world. — Laz Alonso

Whenever Great Britain's iron hand needs to appear, like a well-oiled mechanism that is never forgotten or neglected, the two pillars that hold up the Empire's dominion rise into view: the Administration and the Law. As I have said before . . . nothing odder than the flimsy wood and stone building called the Palace of Justice, in the farthest corner of the South Atlantic, provided so that the authorities might investigate the murder of men, who, romantically . . . went out to exercise their own rights over the life and liberty of others about whom they had not the slightest knowledge. — Sylvia Iparraguirre

When unconscious storytelling becomes out default, we often keep tripping over the same issue, staying down when we fall, and having different versions of the same problem in our relationships--we've got the story on repeat. Burton explains that our brains like predictable storytelling. He writes, "In effect, well-oiled patterns of observation encourage our brains to compose a story that we expect to hear. — Brene Brown

What are you smiling at?" she snapped at Roarke.
"I'm a man, and I'm sitting here having coffee and cookies while two beautiful women snarl at each other. Being a man I'm required to wonder - perhaps imagine - whether there will soon be physical contact. Clothing may be ripped away. Why wouldn't I smile?"
"Not perfect," Eve muttered. "Shut up for five seconds," she ordered Nadine, "before we're in his head naked, oiled up, and rolling around on the floor."
"And my smile grows wider. — J.D. Robb

If she'd been quizzed as to His Grace's eye color, she would've had to reply simply that they were dark. Which they were. Very dark, nearly black, but not quite. The Duke of Wakefield's eyes were a deep, rich brown, like coffee newly brewed, like walnut wood oiled and polished, like seal fur shining in the light, and even though they were rather lovely to look at, they were as cold as iron in winter. One touch and her very soul might freeze. — Elizabeth Hoyt

I explain to athletes, you're supposed to be a well-oiled machine. You're supposed to be in better shape than the people watching you. You're supposed to be an unbelievable specimen of a human being. You have to treat your body different while you're performing. — John Salley

At the end of the season of sorrows comes the time of rejoicing. Spring, like a well-oiled clock, noiselessly indicates this time. — Roger Zelazny

I sit in my chair, the wreath on the ceiling floating above my head, like a frozen halo, a zero. A hole in space where a star exploded. A ring, on water, where a stone's been thrown. All things white and circular. I wait for the day to unroll, for the earth to turn, according to the round face of the implacable clock. The geometrical days, which go around and around, smoothly and oiled. Sweat already on my upper lip, I wait, for the arrival of the inevitable egg, which will be lukewarm like the room and will have a green film on the yolk and will taste faintly of sulphur. Today, — Margaret Atwood

I do miss 'Battlestar', the cast and crew. That was a pretty well-oiled machine. It's sort of like you don't know what you've got till it's gone. But I go to a lot of sci-fi conventions, and I love going and talking about the show. — Aaron Douglas

She drove into the inner bailey and saw the sight she had tried to envision on the way here. But nothing had prepared her for this. Hot, hot, hot men in kilts with oiled abs, pecs, and bare legs, and wearing leather boots -- some ancient, others more modern. The men were absolutely drool worthy! The only thing she regretted was that she hadn't been given the opportunity to oil them down. — Terry Spear

The kiss is the greatest of gifts, a miracle, uniquely human. A kiss beneath the mistletoe. A kiss after midnight. A kiss before dying. The devil's kiss. As a picture tells a thousand words, so a kiss says everything that's important. I am told prostitutes never kiss their clients. It is too personal, too human. We kiss to say I love you. We kiss the rings of the self-important. The feet of conquerors. The rich dark earth when we reach the promised land. We kiss our hands and wave as loved ones begin a journey. We kiss strangers before dawn in the first hours of a New Year because our wintry lips are incomplete until they are oiled by a kiss. — Chloe Thurlow

Or there, in the clay-baked piedmont of the South, that lean and tan-faced boy who sprawls there in the creaking chair among admiring cronies before the open doorways of the fire department, and tells them how he pitched the team to shut-out victory to-day. What visions burn, what dreams possess him, seeker of the night? The packed stands of the stadium, the bleachers sweltering with their unshaded hordes, the faultless velvet of the diamond, unlike the clay-balked outfields down in Georgia. The mounting roar of eighty thousand voices and Gehrig coming up to bat, the boy himself upon the pitching mound, the lean face steady as a hound's; then the nod, the signal, and the wind-up, the rawhide arm that snaps and crackles like a whip, the small white bullet of the blazing ball, its loud report in the oiled pocket of the catcher's mitt, the umpire's thumb jerked upwards, the clean strike. — Thomas Wolfe

, civilization is an ever-changing tacit agreement, culturally inherited, not chosen at birth. Civilization is the invention of man, my big friend. It is a means of ensuring order and structure; it is man's attempt to expunge all and every act of randomness from daily life. The ultimate goal of civilization is determinism, the complete absence of freewill. If everyone adhered to every rule, every demand, every decree of civilization, there would be no accidents, no arguments, no crime! Man would move through his life smoothly, like a well-oiled cog in a grandfather clock. — Peter Jelen

The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine-like in its regularity. The objectionable is eliminated, the inevitable is foreseen. One is not even made wet by the rain nor cold by the frost; while death, instead of stalking about gruesome and accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along a well-oiled groove to the family vault, where the hinges are kept from rusting and the dust from the air is swept continually away. — Jack London

If you were running away from me, down a straight hallway with an oiled hardwood floor, and I had a machine gun and a pointy mustache, I still couldn't hit you with a bowling ball. But what are you doing? You should be running toward love, not away from it. — Jarod Kintz

History provides many examples of democracy crushed by people who said to be the champion of "genuine democracy" and "the people's real meaning". The realization about this may lead us to a defence position that conceals that democracy is an extraordinarily demanding way of rule. It must constantly find new ways to revitalize, to reach out to people and make them active. Dictatorships offers a machinery of obedience, closed and externally well-oiled. Democracy is based on fairness, openness and pulsating life. Therefore it must constantly be won again. — Olof Palme

Legions of young hip-hop fans are as against this as hip-hop's most fierce critics. There is a huge underground movement within hip-hop circles that against these representation. You can hear this message on tons of lyrics and rap songs produced by independent emcees. But they are fighting against a well-oiled and well-financed machine. — Bakari Kitwana

He'd performed like a well-oiled automaton last night, blocking out the reality of the woman taking her pleasure beneath him, banishing images of Billie that rushed time and again through his thoughts and threatened the steely control he maintained over his own orgasm. When at last he'd let himself go, one fevered word had pounded through his brain.
Billie. — Shelby Reed

I'm better off without the armor, because no matter how much I fortify it, no matter how well oiled the plates are, and no matter how tightly I weave the chain links, there's no way it can really protect me. An arrow can always slip through; a swung club could always bruise. And that's okay, really, because it is as much a part of my job to feel as it is to make others feel. — Daniel Waters

My father always cooks more polenta than he needs for a meal. The excess he spreads on an oiled surface and chills. Next day, he cuts out chunks, fries them in olive oil and serves with salad. — Yotam Ottolenghi

Intoxicated? The word did not express it by a mile. He was oiled, boiled, fried, plastered, whiffled, sozzled, and blotto. — P.G. Wodehouse

'Dexter' is a very well-oiled machine; it's just a great show and great to be part of. — Roald Dahl

At that level through out the 18th century, another vision of admirable behavior persisted. The mob did not want the smooth conformable man, the slick hypocrite who could so politely maneuver his way into the rewards of high politics and high society. They wanted his very opposite, the clever thief. The man who thrived not by using the well oiled wheels of society but by opposing them and cheating them; by attending to the well-being of his own heroic self. — Adam Nicolson

I shot all my stuff on 'Arrested Development' in one day, and was brought into a really well-oiled machine. 'Cause it was the last season, and they were wrapping up a lot of stuff because they knew at that point that they weren't coming back. There seemed to be kind of a freedom, and certainly the cast had a great amount of camaraderie. — Carrie Preston

I can't tell you what to do. No one can. But as the mother of two children, I can tell you what most moms will: that mothering is absurdly hard and profoundly sweet. Like the best thing you ever did. Like if you think you want to have a baby, you probably should.
I say this in spite of the fact that children are giant endless suck machines. They don't give a whit if you need to sleep or eat or pee or get your work done or go out to a party naked and oiled up in a homemade Alice B. Toklas mask. They take everything. They will bring you the furthest edge of your personality and abso-fucking-lutely to your knees.
They will also give you everything back. Not just all they take, but many of the things you lost before they came along as well. — Cheryl Strayed

I like the rough impersonality of New York ... Human relations are oiled by jokes, complaints, and confessions-all made with the assumption of never seeing the other person again. — Bill Bradley

Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul. — John Keats

I know you don't think that any tongue I speak is mine; it must be rented. I am always denial, or pretense. A child born mid-flight has no nation. I can pull on either culture, but they always melt like a dream, trickle away, water on the oiled pelt of foreign. — Jasmine Ann Cooray

On every show I've been on, it's just managing all the different responsibilities and time management. 'The Walking Dead' is a really well-oiled machine, and I have a great number of people who do a great number of things very well. — Scott M. Gimple

Religion's just a well-oiled profit-driven denial of the randomness of it all. — Wally Lamb

Anxiety in human life is what squeaking and grinding are in machinery that is not oiled. In life, trust is the oil. — Henry Ward Beecher

I happen to love rules. I love having a plan. I love a film set that's run like a well-oiled machine. I thrive in structure; I drown in chaos. I love rules and I love following them. Unless that rule is stupid. And yes, I have felt qualified, no matter my age, to make that determination. Scrupulous people don't enjoy causing trouble, but they can be defiant as hell. As — Anna Kendrick

Suttree surfaced from these fevered deeps to hear a maudlin voice chant latin by his bedside, what medieval ghost come to usurp his fallen corporeality. An oiled thumball redolent of lime and sage pondered his shuttered lids.
Miserere mei, Deus ...
His ears anointed, his lips ... omnis maligna discordia ... Bechrismed with scented oils he lay boneless in a cold euphoria. Japheth when you left your father's house the birds had flown. You were not prepared for such weathers. You'd spoke too lightly of the winter in your father's heart. We saw you in the streets. Sad. — Cormac McCarthy

Some servent with no sense of the symbolic had kept the hinges well-oiled during the years of his absence,as if their marital life had merely been cast into temporary abeyance. — Courtney Milan

As regards structure, comedy has come a long way since Shakespeare, who in his festive conclusions could pair off any old shit and any old fudge-brained slag (see Claudio and Hero in Much Ado) and get away with it. But the final kiss no longer symbolizes anything and well-oiled nuptials have ceased to be a plausible image of desire. That kiss is now the beginning of the comic action, not the end that promises another beginning from which the audience is prepared to exclude itself. All right? We have got into the habit of going further and further beyond the happy-ever-more promise: relationships in decay, aftermaths, but with everyone being told a thing or two about themselves, busy learning from their mistakes. So, in the following phase, with the obstructive elements out of the way (DeForest, Gloria) and the consummation in sight, the comic action would have been due to end, happily. But who is going to believe that any more? — Martin Amis

My experience protesting with Mojave Dolphins, and the other wonderful animal activists, can be described in a few words: inspiring, motivational and purposeful. The execution of the protests is incredible; the signs are amazing, creative and eye catching. You can really feel the unity in the group, running like a well oiled machine towards the goal of liberating our captive animal friends. — Camille

The place smelled male, not the metal-and-soap maleness of a locker room nor the malt-and-sawdust maleness of an old-time corner saloon, but the leather-and-oiled-wood maleness of a city club, as finished and self-consistent as the ash of a fine cigar. At sight of the skirted figure stalking him, the sole visible attendant took refuge behind a showcase; surely a giraffe, were it a male one, would have startled him less. — Ellery Queen

Resentment has the potential to consume many who appear to be otherwise blameless. Unresolved caged resentment that one day breaks free and kills all of the delicate innocence in the yard. Acidic, rancorous resentment has gears for teeth that are perfectly oiled by bitterness and possess a judgment unable to discern the corrupted from the good. — Kenn Bivins

The spring is wound up tight. It will uncoil of itself. That is what is so convenient in tragedy. The least little turn of the wrist will do the job . . . The rest is automatic. You don't need to lift a finger. The machine is in perfect order; it has been oiled ever since time began, and it runs without friction . . . Tragedy is clean, it is restful, it is flawless . . . In a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and everyone's destiny is known. That makes for tranquility . . . Tragedy is restful; and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it. There isn't any hope. You're trapped. — Jean Anouilh

Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns. — Kurt Vonnegut

I like my coffee black, my beer from Germany, wine from Burgundy, the darker, the better. I like my heroes complicated and brooding, James Dean in oiled leather, leaning on a motorcycle. You know the color. ("Ode to Chocolate") — Barbara Crooker

So on behalf of a well-oiled unit of people who came together to serve something greater than themselves, congratulations. — George W. Bush

How inferior the human machine is, compared to man-made machines. They can be decoked, unscrewed, oiled and parts replaced. Decidedly, nature is not a very wonderful thing. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

Making love requires no thought. You move as the fronds of a palm tree move in the breeze. It is all instinct. All wonder. When you love someone, your lips are incomplete until they are oiled by a kiss. You can say 'I love you' a thousand ways but you can say it better with silence and a kiss. — Chloe Thurlow

He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight. — Ernest Hemingway,

It was a Wednesday, but it was a holiday, and Hattie was spending her day off from the local library (bookish by curling up on her favorite understuffed sofa with her newest purchase - a dime-store romance novel featuring bare-chested, oiled down pirates ("bookish" need not always be confused with literary") - and one of her two cats, the calico one named Mimsy. — Clayton Smith

No one will shake my conviction that those leaders of men, who are in the nature of carbuncles, of semi-conscious abscesses, who draw feverish crowds to them like noxious humours, have an innate knowledge of arrested time. They play with those vacant moments as though at a game of chequers. A fraction of suspended, frozen time, of inert time, jammed like a wedge into the most wonderfully oiled cogs of the most lucid of minds: and the whole mechanism is brought crashing to the ground, prepared to accept any authority, to endorse the most monstrous aberrations, especially collective ones. — Jacques Yonnet

Wash your dress in running water. dry it on the southern side of a rock. let them have four guesses and make them all wrong. take a fistful of snow in the summer heat. cook haluski in hot sweet butter. drink cold milk to clean your insides. be careful when you wake: breathing lets them know how asleep you are. don't hang your coat from a hook in the door. ignore curfew. remember weather by the voice of the wheel. do not become the fool they need you to become. change your name. lose your shoes. practice doubt. dress in oiled cloth around sickness. adore darkness. turn sideways in the wind. the changing of stories is a cheerful affair. give the impression of not having known. — Colum McCann

Oiled, with tube bones cut from bronze and sunk in gelatin, the robots lay. In coffins for the not dead and not alive, in planked boxes, the metronomes waited to be set in motion. There was a smell of lubrication and lathed brass. There was a silence of the tomb yard. Sexed but sexless, the robots. Named but unnamed, and borrowing from humans everything but humanity, the robots stared at the nailed lids of their labeled F.O.B. boxes, in a death that was not even a death, for there had never been a life. — Ray Bradbury

Words work as release - well-oiled doors opening and closing between intention, gesture. A pulse in a neck, the shiftiness of the hands, an unconscious blink, the conversations you have with your eyes translate everything and nothing. What will be needed, what goes unfelt, unsaid - what has been duplicated, redacted here, redacted there, altered to hide or disguise - words encoding the bodies they cover. And despite everything the body remains. Occasionally it is interesting to think about the outburst if you would just cry out - To know what you'll sound like is worth noting - — Claudia Rankine

The SEALs place a premium on brute strength, but there's an even bigger premium on speed. That's speed through the water, speed over the ground, and speed of thought. There's no prizes for gleaming a set of well-oiled muscles in Coronado. Bulk just makes you slow, especially in soft sand, and that's what we had to tackle every day of our lives, mile after mile. — Marcus Luttrell

Usually when you do shows you're in the middle of the tour and you're all oiled up and it's just another stop. It's so much pressure for just three minutes. My stomach still hurts. — Mark Oliver Everett

We were where we we had never been in our lives.
Visitors--visiting even ourselves.

The bats were part of the sun's machinery,
Connected to the machinery of the flowers
By the machinery of insects. The bats' meaning

Oiled the unfailing logic of the earth.
Cosmic requirement--on the wings of a goblin.
A rebuke to our flutter of half-participation...

Those bats had their eyes open. Unlike us,
They knew how, and when, to detach themselves
From the love that moves the sun and other stars. — Ted Hughes

Truth is, most of us contain a splashing, giggling, squealing child who knows without thinking that bare skin and water go together as wings go with air, roots with earth, and the phoenix with incendiary sun. And innocence belongs to us as it did to ancient Greek athletes, who never wore clothes for their footraces or boxing matches but rather oiled themselves until their nude bodies glistened in the sunlight. — Janet Lembke

In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you'll dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it to the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused. — Ernest Hemingway,

I am enjoying my face changing, as well as realizing that at the same time, as you get older, the machine isn't as well-oiled as it was. — Kate Winslet

(Years of work are required before the cerebral mechanisms for reading, if regularly oiled, finally become unconscious.-Stanislas Dehaene.) The important thing is not so much to read fast, as to read each book at the speed it deserves. It is as regrettable to spend too much time on some books as it to read others too quickly. There are books you know well, just from flicking through them, others you only grasp at second or third reading, and others again will will last you a lifetime. — Jacques Bonnet

Deep layers of context are missed when cursorily reading for quantity at the expense of comprehension - only the vapid are impressed by those who try to squeeze as many books as possible into each passing month as if shoving one more oiled hot dog down the gullet in a food eating contest to prove accumulation superiority. — Wil Zeus

I can tell you that the comfort zone has many upsides. It may be associated with sloth and cowardice and any number of paralyzing, irrational phobias. It may be a dark abyss where misunderstood people lie around in fading recliners listening to outdated music. But I'm convinced that, when handled responsibly, the comfort zone can be as useful and productive as a well-oiled industrial zone. I am convinced that excellence comes not from overcoming limitations but from embracing them. At least that's what I'd say if I were delivering a TED Talk. I'd never say such a douchy thing in private conversation. — Meghan Daum

Only a well-oiled machine runs smoothly. — Ron Kaufman

It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there may be a caster of state. How they use the salt, precisely - who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery? — Herman Melville

I didn't have the time to slice a hundred shallow cuts into his lips and make him suck limes. I was too busy to make him swallow oiled musket balls. I had more important things to think about now and a lot to do. -Saffron in Dust of 100 Dogs — A.S. King