Peel Away Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes, a family is like an ear of summer corn: It might look perfect on the outside, but when you peel the husk away. every kernel is rotten. — Sara Shepard

Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang forth from these, a new thought, which was: That I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause: I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the process. — Hermann Hesse

When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don't actually "become" a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being. — Sogyal Rinpoche

i gut fruit with my mouth
push tongue into black belly of papaya
peel lychee with teeth
bite into ripe pear
suck on stone of mango
all of this, over the kitchen sink
barefoot
middle of winter
sticky hands pushing hair away from face
moaning into sweet flesh
the whole time
your name flat against the roof of my mouth. — Warsan Shire

You and I are so much the same ...
You have so many layers, that you can peel away a few, and everyone's so shocked or impressed that you're baring your soul, while to you it's nothing, because you know you've twenty more layers to go ...
... But we're the ones that are most scared, and need the most love. — Craig Thompson

You'll see that it'll take more than five and a half months to wipe away peel;scrape away the blanket of ignorance that has been plastered and replastered over those brains in the past three hundred years. You'll see. — Matthew Antoine

To live with yourself you had to cut off the hand that offended, cut, slice, peel, scrape, and tear away at yourself till all you were left with were your stripped-down bones. Your bones gave you away; you could not hide your bones, nor could you avoid staring at them. All you wanted was for others to be stripped down like you ... — Andre Aciman

Or maybe when they do the operation- when they grind and stretch your bones to the right shape, peel off your face and rub all your skin away, and stick in plastic cheekbones so you look like everybody else- maybe after going through all that you just aren't very interesting anymore. -Shay, Uglies — Scott Westerfeld

Equality is paper-deep, peel it away with a fingernail. — Tana French

This corn will teach to you, should you peel away the husk, and be willing to open your ears. — Anthony Liccione

I love getting older," I muse as I carefully begin to peel the layers away. "You're closer to death, but there are presents. — Abby McDonald

When you remove love from sex you enter a mansion with many rooms shaded in nuance and excess, an invitation to peel away all conventions and programming. A chance to explore your hidden self. You shed something and clothe yourself in something else. Sex is the greatest of gifts. Orgasm a glimpse of perfection. — Chloe Thurlow

Republicans are the drag queens of politics. Peel away the pules for family, faith and fetuses and one discovers either neoconservative welfare-warfare statists or global social democrats ... — Ilana Mercer

As you peel it back, in the heart of nothing, that is love. You are what you are seeking. Life is a set up so that each of us can actually see in ourselves the truth for ourselves. What gets taken away are all the exterior means we thought we wanted love to come to us. You have the choice to notice the perfect set up to see love is exactly what you are. — Adyashanti

I can go barefoot." He chuckles. "You could. But have you looked under the camera box?" "Under?" I go back to the table and pull out the box. Sure enough, there's something else there, wrapped in blue tissue paper. I look at him, but his expression gives nothing away. Slowly, I pull out the tissue paper. Whatever's hidden is flat and firm. I peel back the paper until I reveal a pair of black flip-flops. I look up at Damien and grin. "For walking on the beach," he says. "Thank you." "Anything you want. Anything you need. — J. Kenner

To understand a woman, a man had to peel away layer after layer of words, much as one must peel away an onion to get at the desired part. — Tamar Myers

Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written. — Ernest Hemingway,

As I pedal down the street ... the city blocks peel away like pages in a book I'm rifling through to find a single, highlighted sentence. — Hilary T. Smith

I want to
peel away all the labels
I had once given to others
and place them
upon the fabric
of my own identity.

They have reflected back to me,
everything that I refuse
to See in myself. — Meraaqi

A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I'm just playing it safe. I'm staying as far away from the edge as possible, so I don't go plummeting off with a guy who may not even stick around long enough to help peel me off the ground. — Tracy Lane

And, when i peel away, I find my superficial layers run deep, and the deep layers are just superficial layers in disguise. And, when i seek depth, all I can find is a gaping hole, a certain hollowness, cleverly painted by my superficial selves to appear important. And, my ego sneers at this feeble attempt at self honesty. — Srividya Srinivasan

Rhythm becoming thought, thought becoming memory; memory, which tends to shuck itself, to peel away. You get older, look back through a child's tunnel vision, and realize you never knew the whole that tied the details together. You were just along for the ride, moving from experience to experience, a flat spectacle, some kind of guideless tour. You remember--or think you remember--what happened, but not where, or why. What you did, but not with who. Details fade. People's names get lost in the white noise. — Gemma Files

It's taken me a lot of years to peel away my own layers. — Nick Offerman

When everything is lost (peel it all away)
Haunting us with questions (asking)
Will we... Ever find the smile inside (no), is it hidden
Behind the sweating eyes (bleeding)
Dead inside a scream that's pouring from me — Mudvayne

I was the apprentice of Robert James Bakker. I'm sure you've heard of him. I am a sorcerer. I was there when Bakker died. We ... made it happen. I too have met death, and did not have to peel the bones away from my chest to survive the encounter. I am also, and incidentally, the Midnight Mayor, the blue electric angels, the fire in the wire, the song in the telephones, and we are having a bad week. Be smart; fear us. — Kate Griffin

The deeper you go with the character, the more you see the layers start to peel away. It's more challenging to me, but it's also just interesting. Those are the things I like to watch. I like to watch the evolutions of something. — Edward Norton

As a novelist, you deepen your characters as you go, adding layers. As a reporter, you try to peel layers away: observing subjects enough to get beneath the surface, re-questioning a source to find the facts. But these processes aren't so different. — Amy Waldman

Myth is history in a masquerade costume. Peel away the fantastical facade, and you will always find a core of truth." Adrien Morel — Louisa Burton

I need to somehow peel away the dullness and heighten my sensitivity and alertness. I need to start sucking the juice out of every single moment of the most precious gift ever to be had, "my life!" — Bryan Kest

some of my layers had started to peel away. — Karina Halle

Sometimes I wanted to peel away all of my skin and find a different me underneath. — Francesca Lia Block

Few things are more difficult in this world for a young man than the securing of an introduction to the right girl under just the right conditions. When he is looking his best he is presented to her in the midst of a crowd, and is swept away after a rapid hand-shake. When there is no crowd he has toothache, or the sun has just begun to make his nose peel. Thousands of young lives have been saddened in this manner. — P.G. Wodehouse

I like it when the deeper you go with the character, the more you see the layers start to peel away. — Edward Norton

There's no way I'll be able to peacefully sleep with my cock throbbing so painfully. I carefully undo my belt and pants before sliding them to my ankles. With my foot, I kick them under the bed. I peel away my sweater and have it join my pants as well. Once I'm standing beside her in nothing but my boxers and socks, I stroke myself through my underwear. God, I fucking want her. I push my boxers down my thighs so that my heavy erection bobs out. When I take it in my grip, it's hot and pulsating. I'm dying to push into every single one of her holes. To draw out pleasure and pain from her. I want to own every part of her. Fisting my cock feverishly, I attempt to keep my grunts stifled. With each tug, I get closer and closer to release. — K. Webster

To be gripped by Foteini's calloused, rustic hand felt like being lovingly embraced by a 1,000 year old olive tree. For the first time since I arrived I felt the outer layer of my foreignness begin to peel away, just a tiny bit. — Marjory McGinn

Shay's eyes flashed. "Or maybe when they do the operation - when they grind and stretch your bones to the right shape, peel off your face and rub all your skin away, and stick in plastic cheekbones so you look like everybody else - maybe after going through all that you just aren't very interesting anymore." Tally — Scott Westerfeld

Red onion skins and New Year's Eve have much in common - they both peel away to reveal new vibrancy. — Alex Morritt

Olivia had always believed in a compassionate society. But was compassion only the first layer of the onion skin? Peel it away, and what do you see? How do you become compassionate when you have nothing to give? — Vinay Kolhatkar

In that moment I know exactly what I want; I want to peel away all the layers of clothing between us, strip away everything that separates us, the past and the present and the future. — Veronica Roth

Through your life, most people peel away the junk that's not useful, that's superfluous. You are determined to peel that away. I do one thing at a time. One man at a time. One car. One house. One child. One job. — Grace Slick

Game Over! In this country, we outnumber them by the hundreds of millions, yet in the end, they'll win. They've already won. Over decades, with the appetite of the greedy and the cunning of the wicked, their hired agents have built up a national archetype that's now unstoppable. While we were distracted by our own shadows, their needles pierced the national psyche, slow dripping the poison of mendacity into our nation's bloodstream. They contaminated the law with toxic corruption, and while invoking the name of freedom, they crushed any opposition with bone-cracking efficiency. When we finally peel away the submissive bandages that wrapped our imaginary wounds and promised us safety, we'll find our flesh gone to dust, leaving only a willowy skeleton of hopelessness and surrender. — Anonymous

I peel
hiss tense fingers
on his right hand
away from
the steering wheel,
one
two
three
four
five.
With each finger,
the scowl
diappears
a little more. when i place
his hand on
my leg
and gently
caress it, he smiles.
That's better. — Lisa Schroeder

I don't want the viewer to be able to peel away the layers of my painting like the layers of an onion and find that all the blues are on the same level. — Chuck Close

The discipline that ballet requires is obsessive. And only the ones who dedicate their whole lives are able to make it. Your toenails fall off and you peel them away and then you're asked to dance again and keep smiling. I wanted to become a professional ballet dancer. — Penelope Cruz

You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit. — Arthur Miller

Whatever you have forgotten, you can remember. Whatever you have buried you can unearth. If you are willing to look deep into your own nature, if you are willing to peel away the layers of not-self you have adopted in making your way through the tribulations of life, you will find that your true self is not as far removed as you think. — Meredith Jordan

We must continue to be open in the face of great opposition. No one is encouraging us to be open and still we must peel away the layers of the heart. — Chogyam Trungpa

They needed to share one secret after another with a beautiful woman, to peel away layer after layer, mask after mask, and still find themselves worshiped. — Denis Johnson

He tries again, swallowing hard to ease away the painful lump in his throat. "It's just important. I love you. I'm yours. I need people to know."
"Alright," Lindsay says suddenly. He leans down to grab at Pip's bag, throwing stuff out onto the carpet, his iPod and phone and wallet and gloves and Attitude magazine until he finds what he's looking for, a green marker pen, and holds it between his teeth while he starts tugging at the hem of Pip's t-shirt. Pip's too surprised to do anything but submit, he lets Lindsay peel off his t-shirt and throw that on top of all the things from his bag then just watches as Lindsay pulls the pen out of the cap in his mouth and signs his name in big green letters on the side of Pip's stomach. He holds his breath, trying not to suck in the belly fat everybody else keeps telling him is imaginary. "There, you're mine, are you fucking happy now?" Lindsay snaps, and throws the recapped pen across the room to get lost in the bookcase somewhere. — Richard Rider

Bit by bit, Dr. Driscoll helped me to peel away the layers of protection I had built up over the years. The process was not that unlike the peeling of an onion, which also makes us cry. It has been a painful journey, and I don't now when it will end, when I can say, "OK, it's over." Maybe never. Maybe sooner than I know. I recently told Dr. Driscoll that I feel the beginnings of feeling OK, that this is the right path. — Charles L. Bailey Jr.

If we could see the fullness of our tomorrows, how many of us would take desperate action to change the future? What if our far seeing showed us the loss of our homes, our families, our very lives, and to save it all we would need only to barter away our most precious souls. Who among us would give up what we cannot see for what we can hold in our hands? I believe many of us would peel ourselves away from our immortal selves as easily as the skin from a boiled plum if it meant we could remain on the earth for a while, our bellies full and our beds warm and safe at night. (214) — Kathleen Kent

In the midst of a crowd, an individual's layers of restraint peel away, revealing potentially barbaric instincts and a susceptibility to a crowd contagion. — Alexandra Robbins

Look around. Take the tour. Fear hangs on the wall and shame sometimes. Emotional dislocation too. But I am brave in my admission. Are you? When no one is looking, I check to see if anyone seems as scared as me, or lonely, or shy, or insecure. Is it just me? I'm not so sure. Is your heart an onion too? Show me yours, I'll show you mine we used to say. Your turn. Peel away. — Nikki Grimes

What I'm feeling, I think, is joy. And it's been some time since I've felt that blinkered rush of happiness, This might be one of those rare events that lasts, one that'll be remembered and recalled as months and years wind and ravel. One of those sweet, significant moments that leaves a footprint in your mind. A photograph couldn't ever tell its story. It's like something you have to live to understand. One of those freak collisions of fizzing meteors and looming celestial bodies and floating debris and one single beautiful red ball that bursts into your life and through your body like an enormous firework. Where things shift into focus for a moment, and everything makes sense. And it becomes one of those things inside you, a pearl among sludge, one of those big exaggerated memories you can invoke at any moment to peel away a little layer of how you felt, like a lick of ice cream. The flavor of grace. — Craig Silvey

But the truth enters at the end of life.
It enters like oxygen into every cell
and the madness it feeds there in some
is only a lucid metaphor
for something long burned to nothing,
like a star.
How do you get under your desire?
How do you peel away each desire
like ponderous clothes, one at a time,
until what's underneath is known? — Michael Ryan

I think happiness is a choice. I believe luck is your attitude. It sounds like a really annoying bumper sticker. But there is such a great truth in that. You choose how you want to feel about what happens to you. I could have been a miserable failure. I haven't had anybody looking over me, and I've found my own way through optimistic exploration and fire-burning mistakes. I am a very happy person with an extraordinary life, so I must be doing a lot of things right. I really believe when you peel away the layers, the worlds is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people. — Drew Barrymore

Ignorance might feel like bliss, but when you peel away the happy layer, it's still just a lack of information. — Emma Chase

When you first hear Mozart's music, your first impression is that it's very alive, but if you peel away the layers, you can hear sorrow and sadness behind it, and that's what I try to be: multi-layered. — Park Chan-wook

You have so many layers, that you can peel away a few, and everyone's so shocked or impressed that you're baring your soul, while to you it's nothing, because you know you've twenty more layers to go. — Craig Thompson

Lying can be a second skin, but when you are called out on that lie, it can become all too easy for that skin to start to peel away. — Jillian Cantor

Sometimes she wondered if it wouldn't have been better to let herself experience it [the grief] in the beginning - like a Band-Aid torn off quickly. A burst of intense pain that stung and went away. That had to be better than this slow peel of heartache she experienced now. Her rush to forget had left her with a residual sadness she couldn't quite shake. — Katie Ganshert

I learned that the majority of the time, simplicity is the best way to go about things as you peel away the layers ... that's when you start finding the gold ... I can't say that was from my own acting. That was from observing actors like John Spencer and Martin Sheen ... I had a chance just to observe. — Dule Hill

The right hon. Gentleman [Sir Robert Peel] caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. — Benjamin Disraeli

I vividly remember my sixth-grade classroom. I remember what it smelled like, where I sat, what I could see out the window, and how I felt about things. Peel away my decrepit middle-aged exterior, and an important part of me is still twelve years old. It helps me when I sit down to write stories for kids. — Rodman Philbrick

Tally sighed, tipping her feet again to follow. "Maybe that's because they have better stuff to do than kid tricks. Maybe partying in town is better than hanging out in a bunch of old ruins."
Shay's eyes flashed. "Or maybe when they do the operation-when they grind and stretch your bones to the right shape, peel off your face and rub all your skin away, and stick in plastic cheekbones so you look like everyone else-maybe after going through all that you just aren't very interesting anymore. — Scott Westerfeld

I used to be in school, like a good boy. Medieval Literature. Von Eschenbach, Chaucer, Milton... Yes, sir, no, sir. Then I had that... Crisis. You know it? Wake up one morning and everything's all wrong? Wake up one morning and it occurs to you the milk's spoiled and the bread is getting moldy. Wake up and it just hits you. Someday you're gonna die. Maybe like that girl last night died. Face down in an alley with a caved in head. Such a terrible thing and what for? Why life? Why This life? Why This soap? Why these hands? What's it all mean? Deep down you fear nothing. But you still hope something. Either way, you're not really sure. That's my crisis. I don't wanna die. But if I'm gonna die, first I'm gonna live. I'm gonna peel life like fruit, and use it up. I'm gonna light up an' burn. I'll burn and burn until I'm snuffed out. Then I'll just fade away. But until then I'm gonna live! I'm ready. I'm gonna do it. Come what may, one hundred percent. — Paul Pope

Stay away
from men who peel the skin
of other women, forcing you to
wear them. — Ijeoma Umebinyuo

Acting is like peeling an onion. You have to peel away each layer to reveal another. — Juliette Binoche

Those eyes. I felt like they pierced right through me; that if I didn't break away now, they would peel me open to see what lay beneath. Deep within, the dragon stirred, growling. She didn't like this human, I realized. Maybe he scared her, or the intensity of his gaze reminded her of a predator. Or maybe she felt that, if I stared at him much longer, I would lose myself in those stormy eyes and forget all about a certain golden-eyed rogue, waiting for me in the darkness. — Julie Kagawa