Perfectly Made Quotes & Sayings

I don't think I've ever made a conscious effort to alter the sound. I don't see the point. I have to remain true to how I sing. I'm perfectly happy with what I am. Whatever that is. — Steven Morrissey

For all its apparent speed, the ship was almost perfectly silent, and he experienced an enervating, eerie feeling, as though the ancient warship, mothballed all those centuries, had somehow not yet fully woken up, and events within its sleek hull still moved to another, slower tempo, made half of dreams. — Iain Banks

I put the photo in an album called Mortifying Emotional Moments, and I title it Soggy Napkin Note. The last selfie I posted in there was of me on the day I graduated college. My perfectly made up face is happy ... relieved. I called that one: Sallie Mae Can Suck It. — Tarryn Fisher

Something inside him shifted and came to rest, as if it had found its proper place. It was like one of his sister's wooden tumbling puzzles, like the satisfying click it made when all its many turning pieces were perfectly aligned. — Lena Goldfinch

Now the deer moved through snow, snow that blew sideways, frosting the perfectly upright walls of Detroit's dead and monumental heart, vast black tines of brick reaching up to vanish in the white sky.
They made a lot of nature shows there. — William Gibson

Miss Climpson's active mind quickly conjured up a picture of the rabbit-fair-haired and a little paunchy, with a habit of saying, "I'll ask the wife." Miss Climpson wondered why Providence saw fit to create such men. For Miss Climpson, men were intended to be masterful, even though wicked or foolish. She was a spinster made and not born- a perfectly womanly woman. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Academic historians of the last hundred years or so get all stiff and tweedy when you suggest that people will go to all ends for the sake of their religion. They'll assure you that religion is just a cover for other, more "rational" motivations. They would prefer to explain the world in terms of economic self-interest, of class warfare, or of dynastic imperatives. But has not the early twenty-first century made it catastrophically clear how many people (and not just the desperate, either) are ready to leap over the brink in the name of their religion? The same was certainly true of "the age of discovery." While greed should certainly be given her due, there is no reason to think that da Gama was not perfectly sincere when he said that he came in search of Christians and spices. — Michael Krondl

So you don't fancy meeting up again?' Max persisted, though Neve didn't know why, because she thought she'd made her position perfectly clear. 'Swap war stories?'
'I don't have any war stories,' Neve said, and in that moment she felt that she never would. That every night would be spent creeping round her flat in her socks with the telly turned down so low that she could barely hear it, so in the end she'd have no other option but to escape into the pages of books where there were other girls falling in and out of love but not her. Never her. She stared down at the scuffed toes of her faux Ugg boots in sudden and tired defeat.
'If you don't have any war stories, then at least you don't have any war wounds,' Max said, so quietly that Neve had to strain her ears to catch his words. 'Take my number. — Sarra Manning

It is a fact of life that oversimplified accounts of the development of science are often necessary in its teaching. Most scientific progress is a messy, complex and slow process; only with the hindsight of an overall understanding of a phenomenon can a story be told pedagogically rather than chronologically. This necessitates the distilling of certain events and personalities from the melee: those who are deemed to have made the most important contributions. It is inevitable therefore that the many smaller or less important advances scattered randomly across hundreds of years of scientific history tend to be swept up like autumn leaves into neat piles, on top of which sit larger-than-life personalities credited with taking a discipline forward in a single jump. Sometimes this is perfectly valid, and one cannot deny the genius of an Aristotle, a Newton, a Darwin or an Einstein. But it often leaves behind forgotten geniuses and unsung heroes. — Jim Al-Khalili

Middle-out economics rejects the old misconception that an economy is a perfectly efficient, mechanistic system and embraces the much more accurate idea of an economy as a complex ecosystem made up of real people who are dependent on one another. — Nick Hanauer

Football was always a deal we made with ourselves. We adopted it for its brutality, which was embedded in a context that happened to be perfectly suited to television and to gambling, but which we could convince ourselves was only incidental to our enjoyment because it was only incidental to the game itself. — Charlie Pierce

Literature duplicates the experience of living in a way that nothing else can, drawing you so fully into another life that you temporarily forget you have one of your own. That is why you read it, and might even sit up in bed till early dawn, trowing your whole tomorrow out of whack, simply to find out what happens to some people who, you know perfectly well, are made up. — Barbara Kingsolve

With an amazingly balletic movement Zaphod was standing and scanning the horizon, because that was how far the gold ground stretched in every direction, perfectly smooth and solid. It gleamed like ... it's impossible to say what it gleamed like because nothing in the Universe gleams in quite the same way that a planet made of solid gold does. — Douglas Adams

That scene, like the one before it, is perfectly believable and totally made up — Laurent Binet

While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence. — Samuel Johnson

Once, Gansey had overhead his father saying, Why in the world did he even want that car? and his mother replying, Oh, I know why. One day he would find an opportunity to bring up that conversation with her, because he wanted to know why she thought he had bought it. Analyzing what motivated him to put up with the Camaro made Gansey feel unsettled, but he knew it had something to do with how sitting in this perfectly restored Peugeot made him feel. A car was a wrapper for its contents, he thought, and if he looked on the inside like any of the cars in this garage looked on the outside, he couldn't live with himself. On the outside, he knew he looked a lot like his father. On the inside, he sort of wished he looked more like the Camaro. Which was to say, more like Adam. — Maggie Stiefvater

My basic mistake in 'The World's Greatest Lover' was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character. — Gene Wilder

Tell me what you will of the benefactions of city civilization, of the sweet security of streets-all as part of the natural upgrowth of man towards the high destiny we hear so much of. I know that our bodies were made to thrive only in pure air, and the scenes in which pure air is found. If the death exhalations that brood the broad towns in which we so fondly compact ourselves were made visible, we should flee as from a plague. All are more or less sick; there is not a perfectly sane man in San Francisco. — John Muir

She made each suture perfectly - one neat stitch after another - until they were lined up across Archer's wounds like sharp black letters, as if every set of stitches was a healing word Doc had written to keep his skin together. There — Traci Chee

Why am I obligated to you?" Helen asked, bewildered. "What have you ever done for me?"
"I gave you the gift of life."
Seeing that he was perfectly serious, Helen gave him a disbelieving glance. An irrepressible, half-hysterical burst of giggles rose from her chest. She pressed her fingers to her lips, trying to hold the laughter back, but that only made it worse. It didn't help to see Mr. Vance's offended expression.
"You find that amusing?"he asked.
"P-pardon me," Helen sputtered, struggling to be quiet. "But it didn't take much effort on your part, did it? Other than a... a timely spasm of the loins. — Lisa Kleypas

Their famous attempt to make clothing of fig leaves perfectly illustrates the utter inadequacy of every human device ever conceived to try to cover shame. Human religion, philanthropy, education, self-betterment, self-esteem, and all other attempts at human goodness ultimately fail to provide adequate camouflage for the disgrace and shame of our fallen state. All the man-made remedies combined are no more effective for removing the dishonor of our sin than our first parents' attempts to conceal their nakedness with fig leaves. That's because masking over shame doesn't really deal with the problem of guilt before God. Worst of all, a full atonement for guilt is far outside the possibility of fallen men and women to provide for themselves. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

I can honestly say that there are many forms of atheism that I find far more admirable than many forms of Christianity or of religion in general. But atheism that consists entirely in vacuous arguments afloat on oceans of historical ignorance, made turbulent by storms of strident self-righteousness, is as contemptible as any other form of dreary fundamentalism. And it is sometimes difficult, frankly, to be perfectly generous in one's response to the sort of invective currently fashionable among the devoutly undevout, or to the sort of historical misrepresentations it typically involves. — David Bentley Hart

And how is your head? Better?" he asked.
"Very much. Sometimes it hurts." Right now it was throbbing. "But every day I am much improved."
"Where did you hit it? Are you bruised?"
I put a hand to the back of my head, a little to the left, where I had landed with such jarring force. "Here," I said. "It's still a little tender."
And leaning forward, he touched my hair right where I had just laid my hand. Such was he glamour that attended him that I expected the ache to instantly melt away, healed by his royal caress. But in fact, I felt a sudden leap in my heart that made the pain briefly more intense. — Sharon Shinn

Freedom isn't an illusion; it's perfectly real in the context of sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it's simply a different context, no more or less valid than the other. It's like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There's no "correct" interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can't see both at the same time.
"Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it. — Ted Chiang

Great meals rarely start at points that all look like beginnings. They usually pick up where something else leaves off. This is how most of the best things are made - imagine if the world had to begin from scratch each dawn: a tree would never grow, nor would we ever get to see the etchings of gentle rings on a clamshell ... Meals' ingredients must be allowed to topple into one another like dominos. Broccoli stems, their florets perfectly boiled in salty water, must be simmered with olive oil and eaten with shaved Parmesan on toast; their leftover cooking liquid kept for the base for soup, studded with other vegetables, drizzled with good olive oil, with the rind of the Parmesan added for heartiness. This continuity is the heart and soul of cooking. — Tamar Adler

It was perfectly instinctive. I knew if I said I was a dancer he'd have made certain assumptions. I've been receiving this response more and more from men. They look me up and down as if they're looking straight through my clothes and it makes my heart beat with rage. — Wendy Buonaventura

How did I love her?
Let me count the ways.
The freckles on her nose like the shadow of a shadow; the way she chewed on her lower lip when she walked and how when she ran she looked like she was born going fast and how she fit perfectly against my chest; her smell and the touch of her lips and her skin, which was always warm, and how she smiled.
Like she had a secret.
How she always made up words during Scrabble. Hyddym (secret music). Grofp (cafeteria food). Quaw (the sound a baby duck makes). How she burped her way through the alphabet once, and I laughed so hard I spat out soda through my nose.
And how she looked at me like I could save her from everything bad in the world.
This was my secret: she was the one who saved me. — Lauren Oliver

...Emily hit the Terrible Twos and I bought a book called Toddler Taming. It was a revelation. The advice on how to deal with small angry immature people who have no idea of limits and were constantly testing their mother applied perfectly to my boss. Instead of treating him as a superior, I began handling him as though he were a tricky small boy. Whenever he was about to do something naughty, I would do my best to distract him; if I wanted him to do something, I always made it look like it was his idea. — Allison Pearson

However, from the very beginning of the program, we made it perfectly clear that we would be out of Europe in four years; that whatever was to be accomplished had to be accomplished in that period of time. — Paul Hoffman

He closed his eyes and saw her again. A stack of freckled heart shapes, a perfectly made Dairy Queen ice cream cone. Like Betty Boop drawn with a heavy hand. — Rainbow Rowell

The audience had run to beards and magenta shirts and original ways of arranging its neckwear; and not content with the ravages produced in its over-excitable nervous system by the remorseless workings of its critical intelligence, it had sat through a film of Japanese life called 'Yes,' made by a Norwegian film company in 1915 with Japanese actors, which lasted an hour and three-quarters and contained twelve close-ups of water-lilies lying perfectly still on a scummy pond and four suicides, all done extremely slowly. — Stella Gibbons

They had a much more fundamental problem with the market: greed. Market motives were held to be inherently corrupt. The moment that greed was validated and unlimited profit was considered a perfectly viable end in itself, this political, magical element became a genuine problem, because it meant that even those actors - the brokers, stock-jobbers, traders - who effectively made the system run had no convincing loyalty to anything, even to the system itself. — David Graeber

You must not be discouraged or let yourself become dejected if your actions have not succeeded as perfectly as you intended. What do you expect? We are made of clay and not every soil
yields the fruits expected by the one who tills it. But let us always humble ourselves and acknowledge that we are nothing if we lack the Divine assistance. — Pio Of Pietrelcina

My mother had heard the story of Hannah and Samuel, so she prayed that if God would give her a son, she would give that son to God. That was a perfectly appropriate thing for her to do, but as I observe, she did not have to tell me she had made such a promise. In particular, she did not have to tell me when I was six. — Stanley Hauerwas

Great leaders have to know when to divide that line from being selfless to being selfish, and he perfectly chose the time to be selfish and made plays. — Michael Irvin

There have been men indeed splendidly wicked, whose endowments threw a brightness on their crimes, and whom scarce any villany made perfectly detestable, because they never could be wholly divested of their excellencies; but such have been in all ages the great corrupters of the world, and their resemblance ought no more to be preserved, than the art of murdering without pain. — Samuel Johnson

So Stapes conducted a dinner for just the two of us, then informed me of a dozen small but important mistakes I had made. Setting down a dirty utensil was considered crude, for example. That meant it was perfectly acceptable to lick one's knife clean. In fact, if you didn't want to dirty your napkin it was the only seemly thing to do. — Patrick Rothfuss

The burrowing wasp, which in order to provide a supply of fresh meat for her offspring after her own decease, calls in the science of anatomy to amplify the resources of her instinctive cruelty, and, having made a collection of weevils and spiders, proceeds with marvellous knowledge and skill to pierce the nerve-centre on which their power of locomotion (but none of their other vital functions) depends, so that the paralysed insect, beside which her egg is laid, will furnish the larva, when it is hatched, with a tamed and inoffensive quarry, incapable either of flight or of resistance, but perfectly fresh for the larder ... — Marcel Proust

One of the primary reasons that abstraction is overloved is that a completed program full of the right abstractions is perfectly beautiful. But there are very few completed programs, because programs are written, maintained, bugs are fixed, features are added, performance is tuned, and a whole variety of changes are made both by the original and new programming team members. Thus, the way a program looks in the end is not important because there is rarely an end, and if there is one it isn't planned. — Richard P. Gabriel

The flowers, the candles, the easy swing of the music, his daughter's perfectly made-up face, her artfully arranged hair, the swell of her pregnancy - it all cried out for love, for pride, for fatherly tenderness, even if Daphne would not look at him, even if she had walled herself up with her happiness and left him outside. He did not know how to make her forgive him. He would have to wait. — Maggie Shipstead

Come along,' she said. 'They're waiting.'
He had never felt so happy in the whole of his life! Without a word they made it up. They walked down to the lake. He had twenty minutes of perfect happiness. Her voice, her laugh, her dress (something floating, white, crimson), her spirit, her adventurousness; she made them all disembark and explore the island; she startled a hen; she laughed; she sang. And all the time, he knew perfectly well, Dalloway was falling in love with her; she was falling in love with Dalloway; but it didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered. They sat on the ground and talked-he and Clarissa. They went in and out of each other's minds without any effort. And then in a second it was over. He said to himself as they were getting into the boat, 'She will marry that man,' dully, without any resentment; but it was an obvious thing. Dalloway would marry Clarissa. — Virginia Woolf

I probably should have restrained myself. Graham had been perfectly normal all morning, but after an evening of dreaming up revenge scenarios, I couldn't help myself when presented with such an easy opportunity. Besides, he had told me to get inventive. The "sandwich" I made Graham had six different types of meat including one mystery one, plus peanut butter, plus marshmallow spread, plus mayonnaise, hot sauce, and raisins. Graham — Jen Malone

The use of slave women as day workers naturally broke up or made impossible the normal Negro home, and this and the slave code led to a development of which the South was really ashamed and which it often denied, and yet perfectly evident: the raising of slaves in the Border slave states for systematic sale on the commercialized cotton plantations. — W.E.B. Du Bois

There was fear, of course. That was always with her, something she'd accepted and learned to live with a long time ago. But, right beside it, other emotions were pushing up, fighting for space and light and air. Things like excitement and desire, longing and hope. Agony and uncertainty. Things that made fear seem almost comfortable, like broken-in pair of leather shoes or a perfectly fitted glove. Fear, at least, was familiar. — Laura Lee Guhrke

I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at Rye when I was in the sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occured to them to do anything less then perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I'd suddenly know that I Belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I'd been meant to be one of them all along, and everything in teh meantime had been a mistake; and they'd know it too. I'd be like the ugly duckling among the swans. — Richard Yates

Philip stood with the tip of a sword pressed into Mr. Beaufort's throat. I saw another sword on the floor. Neither gentleman looked toward the door. Philip looked perfectly in control, his sword bending the skin of Mr. Beaufort's neck without piercing it. When he spoke, though, his voice sounded so fierce I hardly recognized it. "Tell me what you did to her."
"I made sure you wouldn't want her anymore."
"I will always want her," Philip said in a quiet, furious voice. "Always! There is nothing you could do to change that."
Mr. Beaufort sneered. "Then why do you want to know?"
"Because I would never make her say the words. And because I want to know how much I should enjoy running you through. — Julianne Donaldson

And his kisses.
God, his lips feel like they were custom made to fit perfectly against mine.
He alternates between soft and sweet, hard and hungry. And I get it.
Though we've shared plenty of kisses, this one is different. It's like discovering a lake in the middle of a desert. Or waking up on Christmas morning to a glistening blanket of show. The equivalent of winning the lottery.
And though it redefines the "cheese" in cheesiness, that's what it feels like to have Logan back in my life, back in my arms, when I thought he was lost to me forever.
Being with him means more than I can express. It's everything. He's everything. I start and end with him. — Siobhan Davis

I know by a full assurance that I am justified by faith which is in Christ Jesus, and treated as if I had been perfectly just, and made an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ; and yet by nature I must take my place among the most sinful. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I started out studying literature, but soon discovered that science was where I actually belonged. The contrast made it all the clearer: in science classes we did things instead of just sitting around talking about things. We worked with our hands and there were concrete and almost daily payoffs. Our laboratory experiments were predesigned to work perfectly and elegantly every time, and the more of them that you did, the bigger the machines and the more exotic were the chemicals that they let you use. — Hope Jahren

She was grown up; she was twenty-nine! It was only recently that she'd been walking home from the hairdresser's, feeling gorgeous, and a gaggle of teenage girls walked by, and the sound of their strident giggles made her send a message back through time to her fourteen-year-old self: "Don't worry, it all works out. You get a personality, you get a job, you work out what to do with your hair, and you get a boy who thinks you're beautiful." She'd felt so together, as if all the teenage angst and the failed relationships before Nick had all been part of a perfectly acceptable plan that was leading to this moment, when she would be twenty-nine years old and everything would finally be just as it should be. — Liane Moriarty

And I think that it is certainly possible that the objective universe can be affected by the poet. I mean, you recall Orpheus made the trees and the stones dance and so forth, and this is something which is in almost all primitive cultures. I think it has some definite basis to it. I'm not sure what. It's like telekinesis, which I know very well on a pinball machine is perfectly possible. — Jack Spicer

Some of his colleagues and a few of his students claimed to have been moved so by a book that they had read it again and again. Who were they? Of what were they made? Were they dissembling? Perhaps he was a fool, but he thought that if a work were truly great you would only have to read it once and you would be stolen from yourself, desperately moved, changed forever. It would become part of you and never leave, and you would love the characters as if they were your own. Who would want to plough over ground that has been perfectly ploughed? Would it not be, like living one's life again, infinitely painful and dissonant? — Mark Helprin

Like we were just jagged puzzle pieces that made no sense alone but together we fit perfectly. That's what life is supposed to be like for normal people right? You find that other piece that matches yours that completes yours. And you make the jags and the crevices fit, even if they don't go in perfectly smooth, even if they require a few adjustments. You don't demand perfection you make it work and appreciate the parts that fit instead of obsessing about the small angles that don't. — James Patterson

Dear God, your Word has made what you require of us so perfectly clear: you desire a clean heart and loving obedience. Purify my heart by removing all iniquity from my life by the power of your Holy Spirit. I desire to be wholly transformed by your indwelling presence. I want to be with you every moment, and ask that you would give me the happy satisfaction of being used by you. Amen. — Andrew Murray

It's despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so much brutality and callousness in the world. It's despair that perfectly normal young men can be made vicious and evil because they've won a lot of money. And then do what you've done to me. — John Fowles

But what he said was true enough: I had recently destroyed a perfectly good set of wire braces by straightening them to pick a lock. Father had grumbled, of course, but had made another appointment to have me netted and dragged back up to London, to that third-floor ironmonger's shop in Farringdon Street, where I would be strapped to a board like Boris Karloff as various bits of ironmongery were shoved into my mouth, screwed in, and bolted to my gums. — Alan Bradley

Her insanely high Christian Louboutin stilettos made a click-clacking sound on the airport floor. Amber rolled a small Louis Vuitton luggage bag behind her. She wore a baby-blue Chanel skirt suit, which made her look like an elegant celebrity. Her hair was long and blond today and pinned up into a perfectly smooth up-do. A pair of gold earrings in the shape of four-leaf clovers and a matching pendant completed the outfit. — A.O. Peart

Was she acting entirely consciously? No: women are always sincere, even in the midst of their most shocking duplicities, because it is always some natural emotion which dominates them. Perhaps, having given this young man such a hold on her, by having openly demonstrated her affection for him, Delphine was merely responding to a sense of personal dignity, which led her either to revoke any concessions she might have made or, at least, to enjoy suspending them. Even at the very moment when passion seizes her, it is perfectly natural for a Parisian woman to delay her final fall, as a way of testing the heart of the man into whose hands she is about to deliver herself and her future! — Honore De Balzac

Everything made by human hands looks terrible under magnification
crude, rough, and asymmetrical. But in nature every bit of life is lovely. And the more magnification we use, the more details are brought out, perfectly formed, like endless sets of boxes within boxes. — Roman Vishniac

I am carved like David,
every line of my body perfectly chiseled.
Hunger is the blade that has made me smooth.
I am a statue, yet I am only air at my center.
I go to hug myself and
-poof!-
my arms go right through me
finding nothing to hold on to.
My hands meet behind my own back
in a stone handshake.
This is not what you were expecting.
I'm so cold.
I'm so sharp.
I've been cut, now I'll cut you.
Come closer.
Yes, come closer to me.
I am going to make you see what I see. — Madeleine George

The youngsters coming up now just go through the motions necessary to make the play. They should bounce around a little, show some life and zip. It adds a little action and gives the fans something to look at rather than the monotonous routine, no matter how perfectly the play is made. — Al Lopez

Tesla, at least, seemed perfectly satisfied with what he had achieved in Colorado. He had made lightning dance at his command; he had used the whole Earth as a piece of laboratory equipment; and he had received messages from the stars. Now he was in a hurry to get on with the future. — Margaret Cheney

The soul may not be destroyed. The soul goes on forever. Like the number pi, it is without cessation or conclusion. Like pi it is a constant. Pi is an irrational number, incapable of being made into a fraction, impossible to divide from itself. So, too, the soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you. — Joe Hill

She knew the minute HE arrived. Felt the warm blanket of comfort reach out to her frozen soul ... He made his way down the isle and sat next to her ... he didn't reach out, didn't touch her ... a single tear slid out from her closed lids and she blindly reached for his hand. He took her hand in more, gathering her close, arms coming around her warm and strong as her head sank down unto his shoulder and the tears finally came soaking the lapel of his wool suit. He offered her a perfectly white handkerchief ... she stared at it and wondered who carries that type of thing anymore? He looked back at her and explained, I'm old fashioned. — D.B. Reynolds

Each and every one of us is on this earth for a reason. No two people are alike. We are all perfectly made and created to do what we're meant to do in this world. You are precious, you are unique, and you are special, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Goal: Celebrate the ways in which you are special and unique. — Demi Lovato

The judgment that human life is worth living, or rather can and ought to be made worth living, ... underlies all intellectual effort; it is the a priori of social theory, and its rejection (which is perfectly logical) rejects theory itself. — Herbert Marcuse

Watch it, minx," he warned with a lift of his brow. "If you intend to taunt me for every foolish statement I've made in my life, you'll force me to play Rockton and lock you up in my dark, forbidding manor while I have my wicked way with you."
That sounds perfectly awful,"she said gazing at the man she loved. "How soon can we start? — Sabrina Jeffries

...you can't plan out or perfectly schedule the big moments in your life. They just happen to you when they happen, sometimes because you made them happen and sometimes because you couldn't stop them from happening. — Caitlin Rush

For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called "going to sleep" but rather "passing out," a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment. — David Sedaris

The suit came up, and Holston thought that maybe people went along with it because they couldn't believe it was happening. None of it was real enough to rebel against. The animal part of his mind wasn't made for this, to be calmly ushered to a death it was perfectly aware of. — Hugh Howey

It's bright pinky-white sand was made entirely of shell dust, like star dust, among which, if you sifted it with your fingers, were infant shells as small as the grains but perfectly shaped. Scattered over the surface were larger shells of many kinds and shapes, some as delicate as flower petals, others, though small, built to withstand any battering sea. — L.M. Boston

She had not had a question like that in her mind before. It had made her feel lonely. She wanted to be alone, but not lonely. That was very different; that was something that ached and hurt dreadfully right inside one. It was what one dreaded most. It was what made one go to so many parties; and lately even the parties had seemed once or twice not to be a perfectly certain protection. Was it possible that loneliness had nothing to do with circumstances, but only with the way one met them? Perhaps, she had thought, she had better go to bed. She couldn't be very well. She — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Perfectly good fruit, simply in being bumped about by chance, indifferently sniffed at, idly handled and overlooked, is sometimes gradually made unfit for those who would otherwise choose it. So it is with lovers. — James Guida

I was told that my diet was so poor that I could not repair the bones that were broken and operated on. So I have just had an Xradiograph taken; and lo! perfectly mended solid bone so beautifully white that I have left instructions that, if I die, a glove stretcher is to be made of me and sent to you as a souvenir — George Bernard Shaw

Liall realized that this was the first time he had really been alone with Scarlet.
He stood up and held out his hand. The blanket dropped from his shoulders. "Come here."
Scarlet reached out to him tentatively and Liall quickly dragged him into his arms. He fits there perfectly, Liall thought, snug if not a little small. Scarlet did not respond at first, as if he would pull away, and for a moment Liall believed he had made a huge mistake. Then, surprisingly, Scarlet sighed and his arms went around Liall's back. Scarlet turned his head to rest his cheek against Liall's bare chest as hey listened to the rain batten on the roof.
"Thank you for saving my life." Liall murmured. — Kirby Crow

So you have found me and would know the tale. When a poet speaks of truth to another poet, waht hope has truth? Let me ask this, then. DOes one find memory in invention? Or will you find invention in memory? Wich bows in servitude befor the other? Will the measure of greatness be weighed solely in details? Perhaps so, if details make up the full weft of the world, if themes are nothing more than the coomposite of lists perfectly ordered and unerring rendered; and if I should kneel before invention, as if it were memory made perfect. — Steven Erikson

Something about this made Reynie uneasy. Had he done so badly? Was this meant to test his courage? He did as he was told, closing his eyes and bracing himself as best he could.
"Why are you flinching?" the pencil woman asked.
"I don't know. I thought maybe you were going to slap me."
"Don't be ridiculous. I could slap you perfectly well with your eyes open. I'm only going to blindfold you. — Trenton Lee Stewart

I read a study once about sleep deprivation. The researchers made cat-sized islands of sand in the middle of a pool of water, then placed very tired cats on top of them. At first, the cats curled up perfectly on the sand and slept, but eventually they'd sprawl out and wake up in water. I can't remember what they were trying to prove exactly. All I took away was that the cats went crazy. — Jenny Offill

Fidelity is surely our highest aim, but a translation is not made with tracing paper. It is an act of critical interpretation. Let me insist on the obvious: Languages trail immense, individual histories behind them, and no two languages, with all their accretions of tradition and culture, ever dovetail perfectly. They can be linked by translation, as a photograph can link movement and stasis, but it is disingenuous to assume that either translation or photography, or acting for that matter, are representational in any narrow sense of the term. Fidelity is our noble purpose, but it does not have much, if anything, to do with what is called literal meaning. A translation can be faithful to tone and intention, to meaning. It can rarely be faithful to words or syntax, for these are peculiar to specific languages and are not transferable. — Edith Grossman

Come to my bedchamber now,' he whispered against her mouth ...
'I don't take -'
'Orders. I know.' He kissed her, over and over now, a delectable repetition that despite its simplicity made her cling to him tighter. 'Then your bedchamber.'
... 'It shares a wall with Madame Roche. I cannot -'
He grabbed her hand and dragged her along the corridor. He opened the first door they came to.
'A linen cabinet?' But they had managed perfectly well on a staircase once. *Perfectly.*
... 'You are yanking me about a lot.' She was breathless.
'I am. Feel free to reciprocate. — Katharine Ashe

The theoretically interesting category-mistakes are those made by people who are perfectly competent to apply concepts, at least in the situations with which they are familiar, but are still liable in their abstract thinking to allocate those concepts to logical types to which they do not belong) — Anonymous

Perhaps you think that I am romancing; but I am not a bit. Every word I say is perfectly true, only I have not made the colors half bright or the things half beautiful enough. Colorado is the most beautiful place in the world. [N.B. - Clover had seen but a limited portion of the world so far.] I only wish you could all come out to observe for yourselves that I am not fibbing, though it sounds like it!" — Susan Coolidge

Backpfeifengeicht," Echo said. It was one of her favorite words. German. A face made for punching. It sited Ruby perfectly.
Confusion flitted across Ruby's face for a half second. It was the sweetest half second of her life.
"What does that mean?" Ruby said. Echo could almost taste how much it pained her to ask that.
Echo smiled, saccharine sweet. "Look it up — Melissa Grey

THE BEAR AND THE TRAVELLERS Two Travellers were on the road together, when a Bear suddenly appeared on the scene. Before he observed them, one made for a tree at the side of the road, and climbed up into the branches and hid there. The other was not so nimble as his companion; and, as he could not escape, he threw himself on the ground and pretended to be dead. The Bear came up and sniffed all round him, but he kept perfectly still and held his breath: for they say that a bear will not touch a dead body. The Bear took him for a corpse, and went away. When the coast was clear, the Traveller in the tree came down, and asked the other what it was the Bear had whispered to him when he put his mouth to his ear. The other replied, He told me never again to travel with a friend who deserts you at the first sign of danger. — Aesop

When I share with churches today, I often suggest that people read Matthew 28. When I read that chapter, I notice that Jesus never says if or whether you go; He simply talks about where you go! God may have to give instructions about the location - the where. But there is nothing to negotiate about the command to go - God has already made our primary task perfectly clear. — Nik Ripken

You are perfectly imperfect, and that made me fall for you. — Ama H. Vanniarachchy

You keep doing that, and you'll find yourself mated quick enough."
"It's no' for me. I'm perfectly content just as I am."
Ryder made a face. "Are you insane? why say something like that and temp the cosmos?"
Laith watch him walk away, wondering if he had just drawn the interest of fate. — Donna Grant

Just as a state's police swear to prevent and punish murder, so the signers of the Genocide Convention [in 1948] swore to police a brave new world order. The rhetoric of moral utopia is a peculiar response to genocide. But those were heady days, just after the trials at Nuremberg, when the full scale of the Nazi extermination of Jews all over Europe had been recognized as a fact of which nobody could any longer claim ignorance. The authors and signers of the Genocide Convention knew perfectly well that they had not fought World War II to stop the Holocaust but rather
and often, as in the case of the United States, reluctantly
to contain fascist aggression. What made those victorious powers, which dominated the UN then even more than they do now, imagine that they would act differently in the future? — Philip Gourevitch

It is in fact an orderly community. The green plants are food for the plant eaters, which are food for the predators, and some of those predators are food for still other predators. And what's left over is food for the scavengers, who return to the earth nutrients needed by the green plants. It's a system that has worked magnificently for billions of years. Filmmakers understandably love footage of gore and battle, but any naturalist will tell you that the species are not in any sense at war with one another. The gazelle and lion are enemies only in the minds of the Takers. The lion that comes across a herd of gazelles doesn't massacre them as an enemy would. It kills one, not to satisfy its hatred of gazelles but to satisfy its hunger, and once it has made its kill the gazelles are perfectly content to go on grazing with the lion in the midst. — Daniel Quinn

A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration
it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself. — John Cage

How subservient to Jesus, or to a humane God Almighty, were the leaders of this country back in the 1840's, when Marx said such a supposedly evil thing about religion? They had made it perfectly legal to own human slaves, and weren't going to led women vote or hold public office, God forbid, for another eighty year. — Kurt Vonnegut

What's so kind of beautiful about the whole thing was that everything that made me not right for all of those hundreds of commercial auditions that I went on and no one ever wanted me for is what made me perfectly right for 'Real Women Have Curves'. — America Ferrera

Aye lass," nodded Gizurr, "you are quite the beauty for sure. I'd certainly offer to buy you a beer or two if I ever met you in a pub and that's a fact."
Ragni tutted and elbowed Gizurr in the ribs, "Have some respect, she looks young enough to be your daughter."
"Well she isn't is she?" snorted Gizurr, "She's been trapped here for over two thousand years, made to think that she's an ugly old bird and fooled by some arse wipe into protecting a lump of rock that is perfectly capable of looking after itself."
Ragni pursed his lips and nodded slowly in agreement. — Jake Adler

In spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisect, in spite of Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one. — Oscar Wilde

The main qualities that had earned him this universal respect in the service were, first, an extreme indulgence towards people, based on his awareness of his own shortcomings; second, a perfect liberalism, not the sort he read about in the newspapers, but the sort he had in his blood, which made him treat all people, whatever their rank or status, in a perfectly equal and identical way; and, third - most important - a perfect indifference to the business he was occupied with, owing to which he never got carried away and never made mistakes. — Leo Tolstoy

But look around at this world, how perfectly it's made. Flowers can't move, yet the insects come to them and spread their pollen. Trees can't move either, but birds and animals eat their fruit and carry their seeds far and wide. — Nahoko Uehashi

How are you?"
"Perfectly fine," he said.
"Are your ribs broken?"
"Probably not. Cracked at most. We fought very carefully."
"Did this settle anything?"
"It made me feel better," he said, sitting up. "Did you see me kick him in the kidneys?"
"I saw. — Ilona Andrews

We touched each other's center, perfectly, just the fingertip upon the clitoris moving more and more slowly, our eyes steady on each other and the delicate pressure fine and more fine until all motion stopped in one still point remembered always, a vision. And then I did not know her pleasure from mine, my body from hers. We fell into and became each other. Then we slipped over the edge, entered and made love. — Kate Millett

Blaise Pascal used to mark with charcoal the walls of his playroom, seeking a means of making a circle perfectly round and a triangle whose sides and angle were all equal. He discovered these things for himself and then began to seek the relationship which existed between them. He did not know any mathematical terms and so he made up his own. Using these names he made axioms and finally developed perfect demonstrations, until he had come to the thirty-second proposition of Euclid. — Catharine Cox Miles

George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day - another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise. — Thomas Hardy