Packed Up Quotes & Sayings

And yet in only a few hours we've managed to erase her almost entirely. All of her things - bought, received, painstakingly selected; her tastes and preferences; all the random stuff accumulated over the years - all of it sorted, trashed, or packed up in less than a day. How easily we get erased. — Lauren Oliver

Ellis smiled at her concern and kissed her cheek once more. "I promise. I'll come home if I need help." He stepped back and gave them a bow, showing his respect.
With their permission, he left the counsel room and headed straight to his room. He packed supplies for the journey. His mother had warned him that no magic worked inside of The Forbidden Woods or even in the outskirts of it. He would have to walk there on foot and hope that no one loyal to Walter caught up with him on his way. — Elaine White

I got to tell you, that if it weren't for that harmonica music, i might of just packed up and gone home, but it made me feel so good, I can hardly describe it. Sort of like my whole body is the harmonica and the music give me goosebumps when I play it. — Winston Groom

The nut of this tree is hung high aloft, wrapped in a silk wrapper, which is enclosed in a case of sole leather, which again is packed in a mass of shock absorbing, vermin proof pulp, sealed up in a waterproof, ironwood case, and finally cased in a vegetable porcupine of spines, almost impregnable. There is no nut so protected; there is no nut in our woods to compare with it as food. What is a Chesnut? — Luis De Camoes

We are the memory keepers and the trappers of time; stealers of stolen glances and breathless lungs from all that have been taken away. We are the noticers of subtle signs hidden in plain sight by a benevolent universe bigger than we'd ever believe...We are the directionless wanderers and the destinationless travelers and we are the crumpled map that never got packed to join us. We are the cinematic lovers and the translucent curtains saturated in light. The soundtrack to the moments without sounds and the swiftness that two bodies can become one in the stillness of a second. We, says the last string pulled out, the final string that kept it all together, balled up tight, filling us after all this time, We, are the chasers of the light. — Tyler Knott Gregson

In the 20th century- an age in thrall to the new- women turn out to be the newest thing of all; still packed up in cellophane, still folded up in the box, having played dead for the length of history. But now we are the new species!We are the tulip- America- the Hula Hoop- the moon shot- cocaine! Everything we do is going to be, implicitly,amazing. — Caitlin Moran

By the time I packed up, I wondered if I'd really been looking for Cassidy after all, or if I'd been hoping to find myself. — Robyn Schneider

Do you remember the church across the sands? You stood outside and planned to travel the lands, where the pilgrims go. So you packed your world up inside a canvas sack, set off down the highway with your rings and Kerouac. Someone said they saw you in Nepal a long time back. Tell me why you look away, don't you have a word to say? — Al Stewart

I've always loved empty stadiums, none more than this one. It feels alive when it's packed and now it looks like it's resting, waiting for next week. This building has seen a lot of things. Billy Cannon's punt return, a crowd so loud it registered on the Richter Scale up the street at the geology department. It's as if all that history leaves Tiger Stadium tired and so it needs to recharge until it's time to wake and do it again. — Wright Thompson

I come from a very small island which is packed with people. I mean, jam-packed with people. I've lived a life which has been pretty much full up with ambition, ideas, stimulus, creativity, some negativity, which I try to avoid. Austin is a great sort of stepping-off point, if you like. I'm from a temperate climate. — Robert Plant

Time, Eddie had decided during this period, was in large part created by external events. When a lot of interesting shit was happening, time seemed to go by fast. If you got stuck with nothing but the usual boring shit, it slowed down. And when everything stopped happening, time apparently quit altogether. Just packed up and went to Coney Island. Weird but true. — Stephen King

And now she was found, no longer lost. Like a bag I'd given up for good suddenly reappearing in the middle of the night on my doorstep, packed for a journey I'd long ago forgotten. It was odd, considering I'd gotten accustomed to her being nowhere and anywhere, to finally know where my mother was. An exact location, pinpointed. Like she'd crossed over from my imagination, where I'd created a million different lives for her, back into this one. — Sarah Dessen

He handed her a plastic container of dried fruit Loreen had packed for the trip to use as a steering wheel so she could practice matching the turns ... Fan's arms began to ache from holding up the container but she was beginning to enjoy herself, too, feeling an unlikely liberty and exhilaration, which if you think about it, can be seen as a good approximation of this life, where control is more believed than actual. — Chang-rae Lee

Pooley hunched closer to his pint. 'A pox on it all,' said he. 'The Swan packed full of these idiots, old Soap flushed away round the proverbial S-bend and Cowboy Night looming up before us with about as much promise as the coming of Ragnorok! — Robert Rankin

Me boat's on the slipway, and I don't want Old Bill clambering all over it. I'll be up for the funeral, see you then.' Joe was examining the tightly packed envelopes in the bag. 'Get rid of them quick, Yos,' he warned. With that, he left, that stocky little loyal sailor who had come to the end of his life of crime. At midnight after the bar had closed, the rest of the boys gathered in the office. That red-headed — Lena Kennedy

As it turns out, if you freeze improperly packed human remains (i.e. balling them up willy-nilly and jamming them under a couple frozen turkeys and a max pack of Hot Pockets,) just like with animal remains... — E.V. Iverson

The dark was hissing and hot and hard with a jagged bone, a cold brutal bone, and hips packed tight. The dark wasn't just at night. The dark was any time, any place; you open your eyes and the dark is there, right up against you, pressing. You can't see anything and you don't know any names, not who they are or the names for what they do ... — Andrea Dworkin

The moment when your heart's rhythm synchronises with the chants of the holy temple, you find God in your soul. It was noisy yet peaceful. They were all dancing in the packed hall, with eyes closed and hands swinging up in the air. It was as if the motto of life was nothing but to enjoy this very moment and taste the love of the almighty. — Sandeep Sharma

A Place in the Forest On the way there a pair of startled wings clattered up, that was all. You go there alone. There is a tall building which consists entirely of cracks, a building which is perpetually tottering but can never collapse. The thousand-fold sun floats in through the cracks. In this play of light an inverted law of gravity prevails: the house is anchored in the sky and whatever falls, falls upwards. You can turn round there. There you are allowed to grieve. You can dare to see certain old truths which are otherwise kept packed, in storage. The roles I have, deep down, float up there, hang like the dried skulls in the ancestral cabin on some out-of-the-way Melanesian islet. A childlike aura round the gruesome trophies. So mild it is, in the forest. — Tomas Transtromer

I enjoy the TV series 'Dexter,' where there's a reason for every kill. Quentin Tarantino is a favourite, and a 'Kill Bill' action-packed movie would be up my street. I'd love to be India's first scream queen! — Bipasha Basu

She was so emotional, on the verge of tears. This was what I'd wanted to prevent with all those quick disappearances, the tangledness of farewells and all the baggage they brought with them. But now, looking at Deb, I realized what else I'd given up: knowing for sure that someone was going to miss me. What happened to goodbye, Michael in Westcott had written on my Ume page. I was pretty sure I knew, now. It had been packed away in a box of its own, trying to be forgotten, until I really needed it. Until now. — Sarah Dessen

From 16 to 21 when I was self sufficient and working in factories. I packed batteries, boxes, and make-up with heroin addicts. I have to thank my mum for kicking me out at 16 and making me stand on my own two feet. — Jay Kay

My best friend growing up really put the bug in my ear about acting. We created this one hour-and-a-half improv play when we were 10 or 11 and performed it at the library. We just played off each other so well and had the best time doing it and the funniest part was, we wound up having packed houses, other people loved it too. — Katherine Moennig

The task of the teacher of the Bible is to open up what's closed, to make plain what is obscure, to unravel what is knotted and to unfold what is tightly packed. — Alistair Begg

The other night we talked about literature's elimination of the unessential, so that we are given a concentrated "dose" of life. I said, almost indignantly, "That's the danger of it, it prepares you to live, but at the same time, it exposes you to disappointments because it gives a heightened concept of living, it leaves out the dull or stagnant moments. You, in your books, also have a heightened rhythm, and a sequence of events so packed with excitement that I expected all your life to be delirious, intoxicated."
Literature is an exaggeration, a dramatization, and those who are nourished on it (as I was) are in great danger of trying to approximate an impossible rhythm. Trying to live up to Dostoevskian scenes every day. And between writers there is a straining after extravagance. We incite each other to jazz-up our rhythm. — Anais Nin

She'd packed up her mother's life in boxes for storage — Rachel Gibson

For tonight, until the sun came up and the suitcases were packed, he was mine. — Christina Lauren

And the dark night of flow is an issue that society has not made particularly easy to handle. How many people have stopped playing guitar, writing poetry, or painting watercolors - activities packed with flow triggers - because these are also activities that do not squarely fit into culturally acceptable responsibility categories like "career" or "children"? How many, now grown up and done with childish things, have put away the surfboard, the skateboard, the whatever? How many have made the mistake of conflating the value of the vehicle that leads us to an experience (the surfboard, etc.) with the value of the experience itself (the flow state)? — Steven Kotler

All took leave from life in the manner which most suited them. Some praying, some deliberately drunk, others lustfully intoxicated for the last time. But the mothers stayed up to prepare the food for the journey with tender care, and washed their children and packed their luggage; and at dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundreds other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to die tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today? — Primo Levi

My parents listened to music in our house all the time when we were growing up. It was everything from Dolly Parton to Paul Simon ... We packed in everything. — Clare Bowen

It was like a classic thing with Emma. So I walked in and I slammed the door and everything fell off the wall on the set. It was my second or third scene and I was so embarrassed and scared and so nervous about what everyone would say, but everyone just packed up laughing. — Dannii Minogue

I wore this hat to Hell.' He held the hat up to his nose and inhaled. 'Still faintly redolent of brimstone. That smell gets everywhere.' Horst, waiting by the door with the packed suitcase, said, 'When a normal person uses a phrase like they wore a hat to Hell, one naturally assumes they just wore it a lot. — Jonathan L. Howard

Winter's hard-packed snow Cedes to the fruitful summer; stubborn night At last removes, for day's white steeds to shine. The dread blast of the gale slackens and gives Peace to the sounding sea; and Sleep, strong jailer, In time yields up his captive. Shall not I Learn place and wisdom? — Michael K. Kellogg

His friend arrived and prescribed painkillers and bed rest, giving Daniel the relief of knowing that at least Tiffany hadn't injured herself further. "If you ever find who did this to such a beautiful woman," his friend murmured to him as he packed up to leave, "I will be happy to provide you with an airtight alibi to cover whatever you choose to do to him. — Imani Black

Fine. Get everyone packed up and moved. For now, until we can have the ceremony at the next run, you're welcome in the pride." Deuce allowed his gaze to flick to his mate's mother and then back at Alex. "Yeah, even if she is a squirrel, she can join us. We'll just warn the pride that squirrels are now off their list o' munchables. They'll be pissed though. First rabbits, then foxes, and now squirrels. I swear to god, if anyone mates a deer, we're going to be in trouble. — Celia Kyle

Of course you lose track of where you are sometimes, as you finish a show and ride in a tour bus from anywhere from 3 -12 hours and wake up in another city, and check into a hotel. So, I woke up after a few hours, packed all my stuff up and headed for the bus to depart for that day's show. I get to the lobby and our production person looked at me and said, "where are you headed?" - It was a day off! — Eliot Lewis

Sold my house in LA, packed myself up and moved to New York, not knowing anybody. Friends are very hard to make after a certain age. — Joan Rivers

I opened the bag and packed the boots in; and then, just as I was going to close it, a horrible idea occurred to me. Had I packed my tooth-brush? I don't know how it is, but I never do know whether I've packed my tooth-brush.
My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when I'm travelling, and makes my life a misery. I dream that I haven't packed it, and wake up in a cold perspiration, and get out of bed and hunt for it. And, in the morning, I pack it before I have used it, and have to unpack again to get it, and it is always the last thing I turn out of the bag; and then I repack and forget it, and have to rush upstairs for it at the last moment and carry it to the railway station, wrapped up in my pocket-handkerchief. — Jerome K. Jerome

Leo had once joked about writing an allegorical sketch where Parody packed its bags, shut up shop and put a sign on the door which read: "Closed. Any inquiries please contact the Real". — Patrick McGuinness

I have to admit that I'm up to my neck in frivolity, buried in dresses to the point of ruin! Fifteen different garments! My wardrobe jam-packed! My girl, this is not the way for an old woman to behave - particularly since you never wear anything but black and white, or a little grey, so that you always look as though you were in the same dress. Why fritter away your money so absurdly? (22 August 1919) — Liane De Pougy

Neither Doyle nor Sullivan had ever been to visit him at Regina Cleri, and Tip had only come one time and then left after five minutes. To Father Sullivan it was as if this part of his family, these people whom he loved, had all packed up and gone to Africa. — Ann Patchett

I turned into Little Red Riding Hood. I made a cake, packed it up and went through the forest until I met the wolves. That's something the story got wrong, wolves don't travel solo, they hunt in packs. — Louise Welsh

Well, "slithy" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau - there are two meanings packed up into one word. — Lewis Carroll

The kid moved, and Judith dropped her lunch tray on the table and took her seat. "Would you like to swap lunches?" she asked me. "Yours looks so much better than mine."
I was holding a mashed-up tunafish sand-wich. "This?" I asked, waving it. Half the tunafish fell out of the soggy bread.
"Yum!" Judith exclaimed. "Want my pizza, Sam? Here. Take it." She slid her tray in front of me. "You bring great lunches. I wish my mum packed lunches like yours."
I could see Cory staring at me , his eyes wide with disbelief.
I really couldn't believe it, either. All Judith wanted from the world was to be exactly like me! — R.L. Stine

When I travel, I always take my Winsor & Newton watercolor kit, which is the size of a pack of cigarettes when folded up. I bought my first one in the 1980s. It was handy to bring on trips, and I packed it into a leather pouch along with a couple of brushes, a pencil, an eraser and paper. — Susan Minot

My mother looked at my dad and didn't know him. Didn't know where she was. Who she was. What was happening to her. There was this, like, permanent, creepy smile, cracked lips pulled back from bleeding gums, her teeth stained with blood. Sounds came out of her mouth, but they weren't words. The place in her brain that made words was packed with virus, and the virus didn't know language - it knew only how to make more of itself. And then my mother died in a fury of jerks and gargled screams, her uninvited guests rocketing out of every orifice, because she was done, they'd used her up, time to turn off the lights and find a new home. — Rick Yancey

Perfect hexagonal tubes in a packed array. Bees are hard-wired to lay them down, but how does an insect know enough geometry to lay down a precise hexagon? It doesn't. It's programmed to chew up wax and spit it out while turning on its axis, and that generates a circle. Put a bunch of bees on the same surface, chewing side-by-side, and the circles abut against each other - deform each other into hexagons, which just happen to be more efficient for close packing anyway. — Peter Watts

We know these men are professionals whose services are up for bid and whose bags are packed, and yet we call them our own and take personal, even civic pride in their accomplishments. — John Thorn

two of them, Ivan and Sergei, had strolled in, squinting curiously at my market stall. They seemed particularly interested in all the silk clothing I had just brought back from India. Ivan - the tall, dark, handsome one - was relatively polite. He waved a slender hand at his own stall, packed with the very same silk, and said, 'I think we have a problem.' Viktor - his short, psychotic brother - was more to the point. The stubby fingers of one hand curled around my table, lifted it and tipped the whole thing over. He glared at me. 'If that goes back up,' he growled, 'I'm — Frank Kusy

One day we were sitting in our little classroom in the middle of Australia Zoo, and Dad bursts in and says, 'OK, today we're going to go climb a mountain,' - the Glass House Mountains are about 20 minutes away - so we packed up all our math work and ran out the door and climbed Mount Tibrogargan. — Bindi Irwin

When she had packed all the artifacts that made up their personal history into liquor store boxes, the house became strictly a feminine place. She stood with her hands on her hips, stoically accepting the absence of old Boston Celtics coasters and the tangle of fishing poles, the old dartboard from a Scots pub, the toolbox and downhill skis, the silky patterned ties which sat in the base of one box like a writing mass of snakes. Without these things, one tended to notice the bright eyelet curtains, the vase filled with yawning crocuses, a needlepoint pillow ... Overall, the house looked much like her apartment had eight years ago, before she had met him. — Jodi Picoult

I packed up and joined Bobby, my stepfather, in Rhode Island, where I spent the next six or eight weeks, till art school reopened, investigating that most interesting of all summer-active animals, the American Girl in Shorts. — J.D. Salinger

At the time I would have endorsed the radical notions of R. D. Laing that insanity was a sane reaction to an insane society. Leaving the insane society to set up an independent self-sufficient commune seemed like a very sensible noble brave thing to do - plus it figured to be good for my mental health. Had I gone crazy in Boston or New York I would have blamed my culture and society without a second thought. The arguments were all packed, polished, and ready to fly. — Mark Vonnegut

:Well, isn't this cozy?:
Dai is grinning at me. We are packed in so tightly, I realize our shoulders and arms are touching.
:I think I owe that boat captain a favor,: he adds, a gleam of mischief in his dark eyes. :I wouldn't mind if he decided to drive in circles over our heads for the next few hours.:
:I think your muscles would get a little cramped by then: I nod at his long legs, which he's had to bend to fit into our hiding spot.
:The pain would be worth it,: he says, looking at me. I feel my cheeks heat up as I stare back at him. Is Dai actually flirting with me? — Polly Holyoke

This was how girls left. They packed up their suitcases and walked away in high heels. They pretended they weren't crying, that it wasn't the worst day of their lives. — Janet Fitch

The sky was so blue I couldn't look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories,
but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk
tick tick tick
me not making a sound
and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind,
but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. — Charlotte Eriksson

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. — Barack Obama

The romantic myth is so strong that it survives the wear and tear of marriage by simply detaching from it and floating up on ahead, and women who are rather fond of the men they married, as well as ones who are not, go through life with a bag packed for the day when the shining knight on a white charger arrives, just in case he does. — Merle Shain

Nowadays the standards had plummeted so far that I failed even at being a failure. I silently packed up. Nothing else was left. They had even robbed me of self-pity — Arthur Nersesian

My first spoken word poem, packed with all the wisdom of a 14-year-old, was about the injustice of being seen as unfeminine. The poem was very indignant, and mainly exaggerated, but the only spoken word poetry that I had seen up until that point was mainly indignant, so I thought that that's what was expected of me. — Sarah Kay

Harry slipped down a few stairs in shock. It was packed, far more crowded than when he had last been in there. Kingsley and Lupin were looking up at him, as were Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, Bill and Fleur, and Mr and Mrs Weasley. — J.K. Rowling

I love New York. It's given me so much as a designer. When I moved here, I wanted to tap into the glamour of the city immediately. More than anywhere else, New York offers itself up - you arrive and get a rush in a flash. It's dazzling. Everywhere you look, there is decoration, from a pair of jewel-encrusted shoes in the window in Bergdorf Goodman to the Chrysler Building. And New York is incredibly democratic. Everyone is packed into this tiny space. You are confronted with all manner of people, and I love that. — Tom Ford

So I bandaged the cut, packed up my Gillette blades and caught the eleven-thirty bus to Boston. — Sylvia Plath

A guitar player goes on the road, and he misses his girlfriend for a while, but he manages to get along. A horn player gets out on the road, plays two or three towns, and then he'll get lonely, and next thing you know, he's packed up and left. It's better not to hire him in the first place. — Albert King

I grew up in Los Angeles, where long drives on packed freeways make everyone a fan of radio and, particularly, of America's national treasure, National Public Radio. — Leila Janah

Yeah, I left Idaho at 17. You know, I graduated high school a year early and just, you know, the typical story, packed up my car and moved out. — Aaron Paul

But when I told her they didn't cost one penny and were very nutritious (I made that part up, but I'm sure it must be true), she ate them up. She packed them into her lunch pail this morning, and when I looked — Ruth Reichl

Will wolfed down his sandwich, drank half his water, and went to work examining the boxes. He discovered that all of them had dates scrawled on the side, so he cranked up to his highest speed, motored around the room rearranging them, and had them neatly arranged in chronological order in less than twenty minutes. Three equal rows, forty boxes in each, lined up in the center of the room. Some were sealed; most were open. Their weight varied greatly; some were packed solid and heavy with books and ledgers, while others contained nothing but rolled-up maps. — Mark Frost

He wasn't a religious man but a vision of what Paradise might be came to him, a windowed room afloat on an endless sea, walls packed floor to ceiling with all the books ever written or dreamed of. It was nearly enough to make giving up the world bearable. — Michael Crummey

Compressed into boxes, packed in sawdust, ... trussed up in sacks, roped up like hams ... — Mary Roach

I used to think the reason I'd like to stop letting fear run my life was that it felt so bad to be afraid, and also that it was pointless - possibly wasted, if the feared thing never did materialize. But now that fear has packed its miserable bags and is running out the door, making slamming noises to call attention to itself, I begin to see how much room fear has occupied. What opportunity opens up! — Jan Frazier

Agonizing really, how enduring love can be. Even after you have packed it up and put it away, it is still there - always there, yellowing around the edges and begging you to turn its pages again. — Tina L. Hook

We found that if you played a bunch of punk singles in a row, people would dance like crazy and then get worn out and go somewhere else in the house. And if you played reggae all the time, people ended up leaning against the walls and nodding their head. But if you mixed it up, the floor got more and more packed, and the energy from the two types of music seemed to feed into each other, and the adrenaline from the punk, and the seductive sway of the reggae seemed to fit together. — Dave Wakeling

Every day at about four o'clock, I would go up to a farmhouse - or whatever kind of house was around - and knock on the door and say, "Hi, I'm biking across Canada, and I'm wondering if I could pitch my tent on your land." And sometimes people slammed the door in my face, but the vast majority of the time they said, "Of course," and then they said, "Come for dinner," and then they packed me food the next day and fed me breakfast and sometimes they got out the bottle of wine they'd been saving for a special occasion. — Pam Houston

He let her go almost immediately, but he'd packed so much into that one fierce hug: want, need, worry, reassurance...He'd protect her with his life. Strangely, it made her indignant. Nobody should have to be in the position of having another person give up their life for them. She didn't want the weight of Declan's death. — Ilona Andrews

Before I could discover, before I could escape, I had to survive, and this could only mean a clash with the streets, by which I mean not just physical blocks, nor simply the people packed into them, but the array of lethal puzzles and strange perils that seem to rise up from the asphalt itself. The streets transform every ordinary day into a series of trick questions, and every incorrect answer risks a beat-down, a shooting, or a pregnancy. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

My mother had been monologuing about how much I'd like it there while I packed up my closet in silence, wondering if I flung myself out the window, would it properly kill me or just break both my legs. — Brittany Cavallaro

Yeah," Chaz says. "You know, when you packed up all your stuff and left his ass high and dry, I thought finally. A woman with some moral fiber. Little did I know that all he'd need to win you back was a big diamond ring and few crocodile tears. I really expected bigger things from you, Lizzie. Tell me something. Are you going to wait until the invitations have actually gone out before you admit to yourself that Luke is that last guy you ought to be spending the rest of your life with? Or are you going to do the right thing and call if off now? — Meg Cabot

O'Shaughnessy is hitting Denholt on the side of his head with his free arm, great, walloping, pile-driver blows. The two of them stagger together, like partners in a crazy dance. Glass is breaking all around them. Gray smoke from the six shots, pink-and-white dust from the chipped brick-and-plaster walls, swirl around them in a rainbow haze. Something vividly green flares up from one of the overturned retorts, goes right out again. O'Shaughnessy tears the emptied gun away, flings it off somewhere. More breaking glass, and this time a tart pungent smell that makes the nostrils sting. The crunch of pulverized tube glass underfoot makes it sound as if they were scuffling in sand or hard-packed snow. ("Jane Brown's Body") — Cornell Woolrich

Both the historian and the novelist view history as the struggle of a tiny minority, able and determined to make judgments, which is up against a vast and densely packed majority of the blind, who are led by their instincts and unable to think for themselves. — Lion Feuchtwanger

Packed up the Dylan and the Man Ray and the Joyce
I left a note that said well I guess I got no choice
Scuse me girl while I'm kicking it to the curb
Leaving with all I need but less than I deserve — Walter Becker

But I like business,' said Pancks, getting on a little faster. 'What's a man made for?' 'For nothing else?' said Clennam. Pancks put the counter question, 'What else?' It packed up, in the smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam's life; and he made no answer. — Charles Dickens

You may not realize initially how many other opportunities are wrapped up inside the first one. After you go through the first door, you'll then discover more doors automatically opening behind that one. One door leads you to another door, which leads to another door, and so one. It's like ten other boxes packed inside one box. The initial door that God opens is your access to more opportunities. But you must be willing to walk through the first one to get to the other good things God has for you. — George Foreman

watch the goshawk snip, tear and wrench flesh from the rabbit's foreleg. I feel sorry for the rabbit. Rabbit was born, grew up in the field, ate dandelions and grass, scratched his jaw with his feet, hopped about. Had baby rabbits of his own. Rabbit didn't know what lonely was; he lived in a warren. And rabbit is now just a carefully packed assemblage of different kinds of food for a hawk who spends her evenings watching television on the living-room floor. Everything is so damn mysterious. Another car passes. Faces turn to watch me crouched with rabbit and hawk. I feel like a tableau at a roadside shrine. But I'm not sure what the shrine is for. I'm a roadside phenomenon. I am death to community. I am missing the point. — Helen Macdonald

I saw my husband in his cell for ten minutes. During the interview the cell was packed with officers and a sergeant, who kept a watch in his hand and closed the interview by saying, 'Your ten minutes is now up.' — Grace Gifford

'The Globe' is one of the most terrifying theatres in London. It's that mob element - everyone packed in and staring up at you. — Arthur Darvill

Inside the maize mill, the owners no longer had any use for a broom. The hungry people kept the floors cleaner than a wet mop. At the beginning of the month, the mill was packed full of those waiting for fallen scraps. The crowd would part long enough to allow women to pass with their pails of grain. As the machine rumbled and spit a white cloud of flour into the pails, the multitude of old people, women, and children watched intently with eyes dancing like butterflies. Once the pail was pulled away, they themselves on hands and knees and scooped the floor clean. Afterward, old women would rattle their walking sticks up inside the grinder as if ringing a bell, collecting the loose flour that drifted to the floor. — William Kamkwamba

At moments like this, his misanthropy sensitized him to the people packed tight around him, no longer fellow travelers but adversaries, competitors in a slow race. And he could not help himself: he was on the lookout for one of those cheats who edge up on the periphery of vision, moving while pretending not to, cutting in with a sly shuffle, a subtle turn of the shoulder. Burdening others by stealing time. — Ian McEwan

Ten minutes," Butch whispered into Marissa's ear. "Can I have ten minutes with you before you go? Please, baby ... "
V rolled his eyes and was relieved to be annoyed at the lovey-dovey routine. At least all the testosterone in him hadn't dried up.
"Baby ... please?"
V took a pull on his mug. "Marissa, throw the sap bastard a bone, would you? The simpering wears on my nerves."
"Well, we can't have that, can we?" Marissa packed up her papers with a laugh and shot Butch a look. "Ten minutes. And you'd better make them count."
Butch was up out of that chair like the thing was on fire. "Don't I always?"
"Mmm ... yes."
As the two locked lips, V snorted. "Have fun, kiddies. Somewhere else. — J.R. Ward

There was a tangible sense of potential as we packed them up. 'We're giving people 3-D printers that they can afford. What are they gonna make? — Bre Pettis

Our city, these streets, I don't know why it makes me so depressed. That old familiar gloom that befalls the city dweller, regular as due dates, cloudy as mental Jell-O. The dirty facades, the nameless crowds, the unremitting noise, the packed rush-hour trains, the gray skies, the billboards on every square centimeter of available space, the hopes and resignation, irritation and excitement. And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities. An infinity, and at the same time, zero. We try to scoop it all up in our hands, and what we get is a handful of zero. — Haruki Murakami

Remember that these years of your daughters life are only the rehearsal for everything that comes after. Remember that its in her best interests to slip up now, while she's still safe in the green room ... Dont wait until she's out in the savage white light of the floods, where everyone can see. Let her practice everything in a safe environment, with a helmet and kneepads and packed lunches, and you at the end of the hall with the door cracked open in case anyone cries out in the long hours of the night. — Eleanor Catton

And all of it was a prime example of why I wasn't jumping on board the marriage band wagon just yet. My dad had struck out three times and my mom twice when she had finally decided marriage wasn't for her when I was twelve and packed up to get a condo in the city. — Tara Sivec

I love L.A. It was an awesome place to spend my 20s, full of creative people, but I never wanted to stay there. It wasn't necessarily Texas that I wanted to move to; I just knew I wanted to live in the country somewhere. My wife and I found this place in Texas that we really liked, so we packed up our stuff and moved. — Scoot McNairy

That was the trouble with moving houses; no matter how carefully you packed the books, they never ended up on the new shelves in quite the right place. — Val McDermid

I watched her for a long time, memorizing her shoulders, her long-legged gait. This was how girls left. They packed up their suitcases and walked away in high heels. They pretended they weren't crying, that it wasn't the worst day of their lives. That they didn't want their mothers to come running after them, begging their forgiveness, that they wouldn't have gone down on their knees and thanked god if they could stay. — Janet Fitch

In seconds an 'up' elevator came rushing toward them. The doors opened, revealing a mostly-empty interior.
"Sometimes," he said, "you have to go up to go down."
Liv followed him in, marveling at the scene below them. She could see the full scope of Dragon Con from her bird's eye vantage, the floor a living mass of bodies. Tiny toy-sized people in cosplay moved in bright splotches of color ten stories down. And it wasn't just one section. The atrium level was equally packed, the hallways leading to ballrooms around the hotel teaming with people. With an unsettling rush, the elevator sprang upward, the figures shrinking into specks. Liv's stomach contracted and she pulled back from the glass. They were incredibly high. — Danika Stone

Let it all go, one foot in the grave and one bag packed. We shall go to our end in the warm glow of the past, burning up the memories, all the clutter given back. — Peter R. Pouncey

Racing up the wide staircase, I barreled through the double doors and smacked right into a brick wall.
Stumbling backward, my arms flailed like a cracked-out crossing guard. My over-packed messenger bag slipped, pulling me to one side. My hair
flew it front of my face, a sheet of auburn that obscured everything as I teetered dangerously.
Oh dear God, I was going down. There was no stopping it. Visions of broken necks danced in my head. This was going to suck so
Something strong and hard went around my waist, stopping my free fall. My bag hit the floor, spilling overpriced books and pens across the shiny
floor. My pens! My glorious pens rolled everywhere. A second later I was pressed against the wall.
The wall was strangely warm.
The wall chuckled.
"Whoa," a deep voice said. "You okay, sweetheart? — J. Lynn

He sang like an angel, he was faithful to God and he waited honorably
for the wife he believed God chose for him. He made two daughters who
shone like mirrors in the direct sun; he blazed his path with a scythe
and his broad shoulders, and he was who he chose to be, which is the
hardest and bravest thing a man can do. He looked at us, his parents,
his sisters, his whole crooked family, and he flexed his jaw muscles,
packed up his truck, and drove away. — Haven Kimmel