Picked Last Quotes & Sayings

Evelyn?" one asked.
"Yeah," I said, waving a hand dismissively and moving to walk past them. Lend always hung his keys on a ring near the door. I'd get those, and - "
"You're under arrest for violating statute one point one of the International Paranormal Control Charter."
I stopped. "Wait, seriously? Seriously? You guys are here to arrest me?" I started laughing. Wow, you so picked the wrong day. Come back next week, okay?"
Before I could move one of them shoved a shiny silver Taser at me; the last thought that went through my head before I collapsed, shaking on the ground, was that, bleep, being tased really sucked. — Kiersten White

Childhood memories were like airplane luggage; no matter how far you were traveling or how long you needed them to last, you were only ever allowed two bags. And while those bags might hold a few hazy recollections - a diner with a jukebox at the table, being pushed on a swing set, the way it felt to be picked up and spun around - it didn't seem enough to last a whole lifetime. — Jennifer E. Smith

He shook off the thoughts - that wasn't anything he needed to worry about tonight. Any second
now, he was going to hear the chime of a new text message, the chime that signaled the demise of rich,
slick Maybe-next-time-we-can-meet-for-more-than-two-minutes-which-also-happens-to-be-how-long-
I-last-during-sex Tyler Roland, Attorney-at-Law.
Vaughn picked up his phone to check that it had a signal.
Yep, any second now. — Julie James

At the last moment, she remembered that her Master might be watching her and, knowing that good girls bend at the knees while bad girls bend at the waist, she picked up the cigar butt, as it were, in style. — Sorin Suciu

Here: an exercise in choice. Your choice. One of these tales is true.
She lived through the war. In 1959 she came to America. She now lives in a condo in Miami, a tiny French woman with white hair, with a daughter and a grand-daughter. She keeps herself to herself and smiles rarely, as if the weight of memory keeps her from finding joy.
Or that's a lie. Actually the Gestapo picked her up during a border crossing in 1943, and they left her in a meadow. First she dug her own grave, then a single bullet to the back of the skull.
Her last thought, before that bullet, was that she was four months' pregnant, and that if we do not fight to create a future there will be no future for any of us.
There is an old woman in Miami who wakes, confused, from a dream of the wind blowing the wildflowers in a meadow.
There are bones untouched beneath the warm French earth which dream of a daughter's wedding. Good wine is drunk. The only tears shed are happy ones. — Neil Gaiman

The last copy of the Chicago Daily News I picked up had three crime stories on its front page. But by comparison to the gaudy days, this is small-time stuff. Chicago is as full of crooks as a saw with teeth, but the era when they ruled the city is gone forever. — John Gunther

Dreams rise in the darkness and catch fire from the mirage of moving light. What happens on the screen isn't quite real; it leaves open a vague cloudy space for the poor, for dreams and the dead. Hurry hurry, cream yourself full of dreams to carry you through the life that's waiting for you outside, when you leave here, to help you last a few days more in that nightmare of things and people. Among the dreams, choose the ones most likely to warm your soul. I have to confess that I picked the sexy ones. No point in being proud; when it comes to miracles, take the ones that will stay with you. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever; she was in her last days and her only lament was: My son did this to me. I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him. It took me a long time to make her say: I forgive my son. Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness. She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her. This is something you and I can understand. — Mother Teresa

Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned and a tire pump belonged to the last man who had picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few were born in them. The theory of the Anglo Saxon home became so warped that it never quite recovered. — John Steinbeck

How can you approve of them? Does it not bother you that your son, your only son, the very last male to carry the Garrett name, goes home from work every night to another man? That doesn't offend your sensibilities?" "Not one bit," Harrison said. He picked up his newspaper again. "At least he looks forward to going home. — Abigail Roux

The last book I picked up had a picture of the Stranger on the front cover. Although his eyes were not nearly as beautiful in my dream state, they still took my breath away. I opened it up curiously and there was one word written in a large, bolded font: FATE. — Markelle Grabo

Without the heavy set aristocratic man snoring away on his side of the bed, without the fresh-eyed child whose hair ribbon needs retying; without the conversation at meals and the hearty appetites and getting dressed for church on time; without the tears of laughter or the worry about making both ends meet, the unpaid bills, the layoffs, both seasonal and unexpected; without the toys that have to picked up lest somebody trip over them, and the seven shirts that have to be washed and ironed, one for every day in the week; without the scraped knee and the hurt feelings, the misunderstandings that need to be cleared up, the voices calling for her so that she is perpetually having to stop what she is doing and go see what they want - without all this, what have you? A mystery: How is it that she didn't realize it was going to last such a short time? — William Maxwell

When the music started and the dancing commenced, they appreciated the extent of their gratitude for Jockey. Once again he picked the right day for a birthday. He had been attuned to a shared tension, a communal apprehension beyond the routine facts of their bondage. It had built up. The last few hours had dispelled much of the ill feeling. They could face the morning toil and the following mornings and the long days with their spirits replenished, however meagerly, by a fond night to look back on and the next birthday feast to look forward to. By making a circle of themselves that separated the human spirits within from the degradation without. — Colson Whitehead

She's contemplative; I can feel the air around her thick with her thoughts. "No," she says at last, "I want to believe you're being sincere but I know you're not. So I say no, because even if I allow myself to fantasize a little about our lives in a cabin on the beach, I still find myself being left by you. There's almost no scenario I can think of where we live happily ever after."
"There could be," I tell her and mean it at the moment. Maybe mean it for longer. Her fingers stop moving and she sighs. I open my eyes and she's staring down at me. The lights have come on around the parking lot and one of them shines directly into her face. She angelic, a neon seraphim under the brilliant skies of the spring. I can see us on our boat, eating our hand picked clams on the fire behind our place. I can see it so vividly I'm almost sure it's happened. — Jaden Wilkes

Meditation is like taking a shower. You are going to wash all the dirt off that you have picked up since your last shower and be clean. — Frederick Lenz

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
At any rate I'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life! — Lewis Carroll

In meditation what you are trying to do is simply get rid of your own junk. You are trying to move all the confusion out of your mind, all the heaviness, all the emotional upsets, all the impressions that you have picked up since your last meditation. — Frederick Lenz

Then, just like that, Gaby remembered the real last time she had seen Alma cry. It was the day Mrs. Gomez had picked the girls up from school early to tell them that Gaby's mom had been arrested at work. Alma wept immediately. She seemed to know what it meant before Gaby could even grasp Mrs. Gomez's words. Two weeks later, when her mom was deported, Gaby cried for a week straight. It was Alma who finally dragged her outside and back into the world. — Angela Cervantes

I'm a De Niro fan. I went eleven years without seeing a movie; the last one before that, February 1980, was De Niro and Scorsese in 'Raging Bull,' and when I went back, it was 'Cape Fear,' with De Niro and Scorsese. I picked up right where I left off at. — August Wilson

As we made love, our scars met,
grazing long enough for mine to say
"He tries to hide me,"
and for yours to reply
"I know I embarrass her."

"He never learned how to swim," whispered my scar.
"She got picked last in gym class,
then cried into her pillow," replied yours.

Just then, a huge wound opened in me.
You touched it. It closed.
I was filled, fully healed, and I knew
I would never be able not to love you. — Tom C. Hunley

I felt like I'd just been picked last for the world's biggest game of kickball. — Ernest Cline

I have come to the conclusion that women believe marriage is proof that they have worth. It is the ultimate game of choosing sides for teams. It is hard to be picked last, but not to be chosen at all is unbearable - especially if you know that you are a good player and can help the team. Not only are you excluded but you also have to stay around and watch the game. — Kristen McMain Oaks

What mattered it to her just then that the rushes had begun to fade and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment that she picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know, last only a very little while
and these, being dream-rushes, melted away almost like snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet
but Alice hardly noticed this, there were so many other curious things to think about. — Lewis Carroll

I have been to rehab nine times. They were high dollar and some of the best ones around. Vince has picked up the tab the last couple of times. If you ever work or worked for WWE, if you ever need help, he will give it to you. He is really cool. Thanks to Vince, his wife Linda, Stephanie, Shane and Paul. Thank you for helping me. It's hard to ask for help. It's even harder to accept it, when people offer it. — Scott Hall

One of the strange phenomena of the last century is the spectacle of religion dropping the appeal of fear while other human interests have picked it up. — Harry Emerson Fosdick

She and Duncan had ended up together because they were the last two people to be picked for a sports team, and she felt she was better at sports than that. — Nick Hornby

But last fall, your belief that you knew her was shattered. You went for a visit without announcing it beforehand, and you discovered that you had become a guest. Mom was continually embarrassed about the messy yard or the dirty blankets. At one point, she grabbed a towel from the floor and hung it, and when food dropped on the table, she picked it up quickly. She took a look at what she had in the fridge, and even though you tried to stop her, she went to the market. If you are with family, you needn't feel embarrassed about leaving the table uncleared after a meal and going to do something else. You realized you'd become a stranger as you watched Mom try to conceal her messy everyday life. — Kyung-Sook Shin

When I get home I'll still have to unload the dishwasher and clean my room. Last night my mom got so fed up of my messy floor in my room she picked it all up off the floor and put it on my bed so I would have to clean it up before I went to bed! — Stacie Orrico

When Johnny Cash died, ... I picked up my guitar and got the idea that Bob Dylan was the last man standing, the last of the real gods. It was for Dylan, Cash, Lennon, Elvis that's what I was thinking. — Jon Bon Jovi

Where did she come from, and where can I find one?" "Picked this one up at a gas station in West Virginia, bargain price. Last one on the shelf, sorry. — Alexandra Bracken

Anyway, here." He handed me a bag. "Thought you might be hungry. Since you're our guests, it would be impolite if we didn't share our food with you. That's your rations for the week. Try to make it last." At my surprised look, he rolled his eyes. "Not all of us live on oil and electricity, you know."
"What about Ash and Puck?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure eating our food won't melt their insides to gooey paste. But you never know." (Glitch)
Puck sat and gazed mournfully into the bowl I handed him. "Not an apple slice to be found," he sighed, picking through the gooey mess with his fingers. "How can mortals even pass this off as fruit? It's like a peach farmer threw up in a bowl."
Ash picked up the spoon, gazing at it like it was an alien life form. — Julie Kagawa

I'm playing George quite a bit differently this season, and I'm glad you picked up on the fact that she kind of made peace with her situation at the end of last season. — Ellen Muth

I have never fit into this town, this marriage, this skin. I am the child who was picked last to play tag; I am the girl who laughed although she did not get the joke; I am the piecemeal part of you that you pretend doesn't exist, except it is all I am, all the time. — Jodi Picoult

On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. — Herman Melville

I've never liked the word team. I've always equated it with being picked last and getting nailed in the groin with a dodgeball. — Jordan Castillo Price

She's cute, you know?" Ollie bent forward and picked up the last slice of pizza and stood. "Only she could pass out in the presence of our awesomeness."
I laughed softly. "It was too much for her. She was overwhelmed. — J. Lynn

I picked up Pandora's jar. The spirit of Hope fluttered inside, trying to warm the cold container.
"Hestia," I said, "I give this to you as an offering."
The goddess tilted her head. "I am the least of the gods. Why would
you trust me with this?"
"You're the last Olympian," I said. "And the most important."
"And why is that, Percy Jackson?"
"Because Hope survives best at the hearth," I said. "Guard it for me,
and I won't be tempted to give up again. — Rick Riordan

We're not always in full control of our actions. I'd be out of a job if we were.' He picked up his hat. 'I'll leave you in peace. Let you think about things. But there isn't a lot of time left. Once the magistrate gets here and sends them off to Albany, there's nothing I can do about it.' He walked through the door into the dazzle of daylight, where the sun was burning the last of the clouds away from the east. Hannah fetched the dustpan and brush, her body moving without any apparent instruction. She swept up the shards of glass, checking carefully. — M.L. Stedman

They had gathered at Eastcheap to wait. At this time of day, the marketplace ought to have been thronged with people looking for bargains, moving from stall to stall, examining the fresh fish, choosing the plumpest hens, buying candles and pepper and needles. The stalls were open, but the fishmongers and cordwainers and butchers were doing no business, despite the growing crowd. The sun was hot, flies were thick, and the odors pungent; no one complained, though. They talked and gossiped among themselves, strangers soon becoming friends, for the normally fractious and outspoken Londoners had forgotten their differences, at least for a day, united in a common purpose and determined to revel in their triumph, for they were pragmatic enough to understand this might be their only one. Now they joked and swapped rumors and waited with uncommon patience, and at last they heard a cry, swiftly picked up and echoed across the marketplace: She is coming! — Sharon Kay Penman

At long last, somebody believes in her. Tonight in this exchange she has gained the tools with which she will build her self esteem: She has been chosen and she has security. Maybe this is all that a person ever needs to succeed. Pearl has been picked, and that has begun to define her. — Adriana Trigiani

All the same, we should excuse ourselves," Vergil said. "Although I am wondering if the meeting was already well concluded when we intruded." He gave Nathaniel a deep look on the last sentence that made Charlotte's caution prickle. She saw the big brother in him, thinking that a private chat with this man was in order.
Bianca still had not picked up the cue. "You are making plans regarding the petitions?"
"I trust that a petition came up at some point in the visit," Vergil said dryly. "Correct, Knightridge?"
Charlotte wanted to die. "Indeed one did," she said. "Mr. Knightridge is proving to be a great help in the cause."
Bianca beamed. "I always knew that the two of you would find common ground in something."
"Yes, we have discovered that we think alike in one small area," Nathaniel agreed.
Charlotte wanted to hit him.
"Indeed," Vergil muttered. — Madeline Hunter

I just might kill someone in my next job, and I'll be honest here, I couldn't do the time. Really. No way. I couldn't share a room with four other people, let alone poop in front of them. I hate sharing a room and a bathroom with my husband, and I even have eminent domain over him. Prison would never work out: I'd get picked last for all of the gangs, I'd never get included in the escape plans, it would be just like high school — Laurie Notaro

Nothing is as bad as it seems,' I thought with the last remnants of my dense optimism. It couldn't be. I'd already lost everything once, I'd been ten, and so had countless other people I knew, and they all picked up and kept going. Or they picked up and went in a slightly different direction. — Lyndsay Faye

When cancer first came into my life, people all around me treated it as the enemy. I was told I had to join the medical team and we'd fight together to defeat it. This was the wrong thing to say to someone who was the last one to be picked for any team. I was much happier sitting on the sidelines and encouraging the other players. I was totally unskilled at defeating anything. So I secretly went my own way and decided that I was free to choose the meaning of the healing experience. I decided I would develop a friendly relationship with the cancer, which was something I was good at. — Dawna Markova

The big news is the midterm elections. Last night Republicans picked up a dozen seats in the House to give them their biggest majority since World War II. Or as they put it, 'Time to party like it's 1939!' — Jimmy Fallon

Nissan asked him to make an estimate of what it would cost to run the plant. When he finished it, he typed it up, signed it, and - according to the procedure he had been taught at Ford - brought it to his new boss, Takashi Ishihara, president of Nissan, to sign. Ishihara seemed surprised when he looked at it, and said nothing. A few days later he brought it back to Runyon with his signature at the bottom. "Frame this," he said, "because it is the last piece of paper I will sign for you." Runyon looked puzzled. "We searched very carefully for the man to run our factory," Ishihara continued, "and we picked you, and you are our man and we trust you. We don't have to sign papers anymore. From now on it is just yes or no with us. — David Halberstam

People usually live up to their expectations. The kid picked first for dodgeball feels a duty to be the best, and to perform the best, and to be better than anyone else. They feel a need to execute. And, the only way they are going to achieve that is to make their body run faster, jump higher, and move quicker.
If more fat kids were chosen first for activities and sports and group/team dynamics, they would automatically start to change their lives to fit into the expectations that surround those moments. Any time a child is picked last, they know it's because people expect the least of them, and so they never actually have a need to rise above that. — Dan Pearce

I have picked up on the terminology of Brother Lawrence, who called praying unceasingly practicing God's presence. In fact, practicing God's presence has been my number one goal for the last year — Beth Moore

On a whim, I picked up a pen and flipped to the last page of the diary and wrote our names.
Alina Starkov
Maylen Oretsev
I wasn't sure why I did it. I just needed to say we had been there. — Leigh Bardugo

As a rule it offended her to be rescued, but this one time she would have welcomed it, been gracious even. And grateful. With staggering suddenness she felt lost, defeated, small and middle-aged, and hurt. This time she would die.

To counteract this frailty of spirit, she picked up the ax and held it in her two hands, the handle across her chest. The blade, evil-looking and running red with the light from the fire, comforted her. The wooden handle felt warm and strong, the ax head heavy and sharp.

Courage returned - or the last vestiges of reality departed. A dreamlike quality took over; a nightmare, but one experienced from the point of view of the monster. Anna was not afraid. She felt very little either internally or externally. — Nevada Barr

The corners of his lips picked up. "You really didn't know I've been following you for the last five weeks?"
Yeah, please feel free to make me feel stupid for that, Ken doll. I shook my head.
"Well, of course not, because if you knew someone was watching you, you probably wouldn't have given yourself a spanking on the roof."
And just like that, the man turned the humour back on. Weird.
- Chapter 3: Heather and Brendan — Elizabeth Morgan

The first card was a beautifully rendered but terrifying representation of what Henry guessed was one of the Elders' forms. Next was half a Wolf cookie. Last was a card that had a simple drawing of a smiley face. "That is sooooo wrong," Merri Lee said, shuddering. "Yes, it is." Henry picked — Anne Bishop

Habit hath so vast a prevalence over the human mind that there is scarce anything too strange or too strong to be asserted of it. The story of the miser who, from long accustoming to cheat others, came at last to cheat himself, and with great delight and triumph picked his own pocket of a guinea to convey to his hoard, is not impossible or improbable. — Henry Fielding

By the bones!" said Shay. "He has all seven!"
"All seven what?"
"The Potter biographies! The College of Spires only had five of the volumes ... four now, since I stole one."
"What's so special about these books?" She picked up one of the fat tomes and flipped it open.
"Potter was a member of a race of wizards who lived in the last days of the human age," said Shay.
Jandra frowned as she flipped through the pages. "Are you certain this isn't fiction?" She asked. — James Maxey

Trying to get an agent is like standing in line to be picked for kickball. Pick me! Pick me! ... Dang, last again. — Buffy Andrews

Tenderness, that most alien and disconcerting of emotions, swelled and billowed in her. She picked up a cherry and stared down at the soft, bright-red fruit. "I love you."
The last time she'd declared her love he'd thrown it right back in her face. She waited uncertainly for his response. She didn't even have to wait a second. He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. "I love you more."
- Gigi and Camden — Sherry Thomas

The Mars Rover sent back stunning photos [last week] indicating the past presence of water. The pictures show tiny splotches of blue on the Red Planet. The other theory is that the satellite dish on the rover accidentally picked up CNN's election coverage. — Argus Hamilton

Last month I was banging on about how books were better than anything - -how just about any decent book you picked would beat up anything else, any film or painting or piece of music, you cared to match it up with. Anyway, like most theories advanced in this column, it turned out to be utter rubbish. I went to a couple of terrific exhibitions at the Royal Academy (and that's a hole in my argument right there - one book might beat up one painting, but what chance has one book, or even four books, got against the collected works of Guston and Vuillard?) ... — Nick Hornby

That's the thing about a great book. Every time you read it, it's different, because you're different. You've changed since the last time you picked it up, things have happened to you. — Jessica Zafra

It was the custom in those days for passengers leaving for America to bring balls of yarn on deck. Relatives on the pier held the loose ends. As the "Giulia" blew its horn and moved away from the dock, a few hundred strings of yarn stretched across the water. People shouted farewells, waved furiously, held up babies for last looks they wouldn't remember. Propellers churned; handkerchiefs fluttered, and, up on deck, the balls of yarn began to spin. Red, yellow, blue, green, they untangled toward the pier, slowly at first, one revolution every ten seconds, then faster and faster as the boat picked up speed. Passengers held the yarn as long as possible, maintaining the connection to faces disappearing onshore. But finally, one by one, the balls ran out. The strings of yarn flew free, rising on the breeze. — Jeffrey Eugenides

How can you tell there's anything out there?" said the man politely. "The door's closed."
"But you know there's a whole Universe out there!" cried Zarniwoop. "You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist!"
The ruler of the Universe thought for a long while while Zarniwoop quivered with anger.
"You're very sure of your facts," he said at last. "I couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe - if there is one - for granted."
Zarniwoop still quivered, but was silent.
"I only decide about my Universe," continued the man quietly. "My Universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay."
"But don't you believe in anything?"
The man shrugged and picked up his cat.
"I don't understand what you mean," he said. — Douglas Adams

Jesus gave us a model for the work of the church at the Last Supper. While his disciples kept proposing more organization - Hey, let's elect officers, establish hierarchy, set standards of professionalism - Jesus quietly picked up a towel and basin of water and began to wash their feet. — Philip Yancey

Empowered Women 101: Everyone wants to be a princess, but you weren't the first princess in his life. They scrubbed his floors, washed his workout clothes, picked up his dirty socks and dealt with his issues. Always remember that history leaves a pattern of what to expect. A real woman knows that the bible is a motivator, but the real instruction manual is observing the last woman's struggle. — Shannon L. Alder

I picked up a mug with the complicated name of a medication stamped across the side, and a slogan about Treating Today for Tomorrow. They're handed out to places like this by visiting drug companies. Last time I went in the office to borrow the Nursing Dictionary, I counted three mugs, a mouse mat, a bunch of pens, two Post-it note booklets and the wall clock - all sporting the brands of different medicines. It's like being in prison and having to look at adverts for fucking locks. — Nathan Filer

Hey, Rhubarb, we may need to rethink our approach."
"No, we don't."
"I've only got one hand here, kiddo. Maybe if I grab the middle-"
"If you grab the middle, it'll be the last thing that hand ever does!"
He pondered that as if it explained something. "So I'm guessing then you don't get a lot of company down here."
"Bobby, so help me, I will rip your arm off and beat you with it, do you hear me?"
"Okay, geez. Let me just get a look - " He picked her skirt up and pulled it over his head.
"Bobby!" She was actually too mortified to even scream so it came out like a squeak from a dying rat.
"Dammit, there's no light under here, can't see a thing."
Thank God for small blessings. "Get out of there!"
"Tell you what, how about you use your spare hand and I use mine on either side of your hips and we yank together. — Dee Tenorio

Sometimes, to help someone you love, you have to commit a felony. But, you don't want to go to prison for that. Hey, dude, what are you in for? Armed robbery? Murder? And then, you have to say, Love. And, that's definitely going to get you, you know, picked last for prison kick ball. — Christopher Titus

Lincoln's heartbeat picked up a little, the way it always did when he rounded that last bend in the road and saw home waiting up ahead.
Home. — Linda Lael Miller

The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain
There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.
He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.
It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction
How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds
For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:
The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged
Where he could lie and gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home. — Wallace Stevens

Only lately, like within the last few years, have I had people actually do an impression of me to me, which weirds me out to think of what they have picked up on, without ever realizing it myself. — Todd Barry

I will never forget, one day [when I] was six years old and I was playing beside the road and this plantation owner drove up to me and stopped and asked me, could I pick cotton.' I told him I didn't know and he said, Yes, you can. I will give you things that you want from the commissary store,' and he named things like crackerjacks and sardines--and it was a huge list that he called off. So I picked the 30 pounds of cotton that week, but I found out what actually happened was he was trapping me into beginning the work I was to keep doing and I never did get out of his debt again. My parents tried so hard to do what they could to keep us in school, but school didn't last four months out of the year and most of the time we didn't have clothes to wear. — Fannie Lou Hamer

The longest piece of literature I've read lately was a tattoo on this biker I picked up last night. It said, If you're this close, you've gotta suck it. — Eric Arvin

Susan's gotta poker, you know," it said, as if anxious to be helpful.
WELL, WELL. INDEED. MY GOODNESS ME.
"I fort-thought all of you knew that now. Larst-last week she picked up a bogey by its nose."
Death tried to imagine this. He felt sure he'd heard the sentence wrong, but it didn't sound a whole lot better however he rearranged the words. — Terry Pratchett

The demon stopped its frantic attempts to escape. It stared at the glitter and began to pant, fingers twitching in anticipation. More twitching. Faster than she'd expected, it zoomed up to the sparkles, despite the danger. She snagged the fiend right before it picked up the last one, and dropped the Magpie into the cup. Instead of a flood of swear words or the offer of a favor, she heard a long, tortured sigh. Then it sat, sorting the glitter into piles by color.
Now she'd seen everything. — Jana Oliver

I picked up a transsexual hooker named Thor, all six feet of her, at the off ramp to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, as I was driving up north to kill a man. — J.A. Konrath

She picked up the ballpoint pen lying on the table, and played with it for a few seconds, but then she looked at the clock again. It had done its job: in the five minutes since her last look, it had advanced five minutes' worth. — Haruki Murakami

All the tiny things made this mammoth union up, all the times he had picked her up from Sutherland station, made her chicken salad rolls and brought her a Lipton's iced tea, called her about Sunday and fixed Nina's shed door hinge, held her and not fucked her when she was dying with period pain, thought of what she said last night and made something of it the following afternoon, all these unspectacular deposits of love he had made and they were the currency, earning enough to have her see that he was nothing but the right one. — Brendan Cowell

It was the first time I used that bat. A Yankee fan in Chicago gave it to me the last time we were there and said it would bring me luck. There's no brand name on it or anything. Maybe the guy made it himself. It had been in the bat rack, and I picked it up by mistake because it looked like the bat I had been using the last few days. — Graig Nettles

Before I could reply, he had picked me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. And afterwards, when I tried to speak, he silenced me in much the same manner. It was a shock (but not at all distasteful) to be so caught up. Later - when he at last set me down - he handled me more gently. He took of my glasses and told me that he loved me. — Jennifer Paynter

Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear. — Markus Zusak

Really, I want to get this individualistic-thing down. I want to walk across the football field alone without looking like the last one picked to play soccer. I never was a cheerleader, I was a slut on my own with the thinking that if a tree has a good time and no one's around to hear it, it's not a slut. But sometimes you do need another tree around to double-dare you, or else you might end up doing nothing but watching TV when no one's around. — Erika Lopez

I did not tell him my decision, that would have broken my will. I did not wait to have breakfast with him but only drank some coffee and made an excuse to go home. I knew the excuse did not fool Joey; but he did not know how to protest or insist; he did not know that this was all he needed to have done. Then I, who had seen him that summer nearly every day till then, no longer went to see him. He did not come to see me. I would have been very happy to see him if he had, but the manner of my leavetaking had begun a constriction which neither of us knew how to arrest. When I finally did see him, more or less by accident, near the end of the summer, I made up a long and totally untrue story about a girl I was going with and when school began again I picked up with a rougher, older crowd and was very nasty to Joey. And the sadder this made him, the nastier I became. He moved away at last, out of the neighborhood, away from our school, and I never saw him again. — James Baldwin

Stealing regular stuff was no fun. She wanted a real challenge. Over the last two years, she'd picked the most difficult places to enter. Then she'd snuck in.
And eaten their dinners. — Brandon Sanderson

Then they picked me up and hurled me into the water. Sinking. Sinking, but instead of feeling panic or anything else, I realized that "Please guys, don't" were terrible last words. But then the great miracle of the human species - our buoyancy - came through, and as I felt myself floating toward the surface, — John Green

I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House. — Bill Hicks

It's impossible to predict which paintings will last and which won't. In New Orleans I painted on a dilapidated shop in a street littered with abandoned cars and rotting mattresses, then two hours later the piece was gone. It turned out I'd picked the side of a crack house and the proprietor didn't like the attention. — Banksy

Daily her tactics grew more sly and underhanded. Last night the audacious wench had picked the lock to his
chamber! Because he'd had the foresight to barricade the door with a heavy armoire, she'd then gone to his door in
the corridor and picked that lock. He'd been forced to escape out the window. Halfway down he'd slipped, crashed the last fifteen feet to the ground, and landed in a prickly bush. Since he'd not had time to don his trews, his
manly parts had taken the brunt of his abrupt entry into the bush, putting him in a foul mood indeed.
The wench sought to unman him before his long-anticipated wedding night. — Karen Marie Moning

But my best friend from college was silent for a long time. She, of all of my friends, had seen the parade of sad wrecks through my life, date after bad date after bad boyfriend. She was the one who'd picked up the pieces after the musician, the investment banker, the humanitarian who was human to everyone but me.
When at last she spoke, she said, Oh, hell.
And, after that: Hallelujah. — Lauren Groff

- I picked these last night. I want you to have them.
- Th-thanks. What kind of flowers are these? They're pretty.
- The flowers themselves aren't important. It would be better if the blossoms fell off right away.
- What!?
- They're poppies. When the petals fall off, you can cut the seed pods to make opium. Basically, these are the raw materials for heroin. If you sell that in the city, you should bring in an impressive amount of money. — Shouji Gatou

I met him last night, and as if hypnotized, I'd followed him into his private jet. Now I stood inside a European-inspired estate in Madison, Wisconsin. I had gone home with a stranger, and I didn't even know his name. He had refused to tell me, saying it wasn't important. Not yet. "You'll be safe here." He picked up what looked like a remote control from an antique wood mantelpiece and pressed a button. More bright light flooded the room. Beyond the glass wall, I caught a furious sparkle. A lake. — Dori Lavelle

If I've picked up on anything over the last few months of wearing a costume, it's that humans are stronger than you'd expect," I said. It was as much to myself as to Sundancer. "We can endure a hell of a lot of punishment before we break, and even after we're broken, we tend to keep on going. Could be physical punishment: getting stabbed, getting scarred, broken bones. Could be mental: losing a loved one, being tortured, even the way I feel like breaking down and crying over the fact that just about every other member of my team is probably fucked, but I'm holding myself together? Humans can put up with a hell of a lot. — Wildbow

The thing about humour is that the super-ego is also at play, so what interested me, particularly in the last chapter which is key to the book -and no one seems to have picked this up in writings on Freud - is that, in the later Freud, the essence of humour is the ability to look at myself and find myself ridiculous. That makes me laugh. — Simon Critchley

The performance was exotic. It was short. And it wasn't much more dreadful than the Chinese opera that had been performed last year.
"Bravo!" Ned called. He applauded madly. Thankfully, everyone joined in.
Blakely bowed, rather stiffly, and picked his way through the rows toward his seat. He didn't even make eye contact with Ned, didn't acknowledge that Ned had just saved him.
Ha, Just because Blakely had no humility didn't mean Ned couldn't try to humiliate him further.
"Encore!" Ned shouted.
Blakely fixed Ned with a look that promised eventual dismemberment. Luckily for the future attachment of Ned's limbs, nobody else took up the cry. — Courtney Milan

I thought I would keep the first name Susan and change the last name but I picked up this book and as I opened it the lead character in it was called Morgan Brittany. — Morgan Brittany

Last year I picked up the New York Times and there was a story about a kid from Dartmouth who was bragging that he never left his room, and made dates and ordered pizza with his computer. The piece de resistance of this story was that he had two roommates, and he was proud of the fact that he only talked to them by computer. — Studs Terkel

Last summer I picked up a yellow scrap of newspaper and read of a Biloxi election in 1948, and in it I caught the smell of history more pungently than from the metal marker telling of the French and Spanish two hundred years ago and the Yankees one hundred years ago. 1948. What a faroff time. — Walker Percy

Feeling like she really was just seven or eight, Claire sat down on the floor, books all around her, and she opened the last one she'd picked up. Even though it was dark, and even though her eyes couldn't see the words, she knew them.

Knew the little prince's story as well as her own.

She closed her eyes. She leaned her head forward against the book. And she sobbed. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

When he picked out the [gravesite] plot, my father had joked that he was moving, at last, to the suburbs. — Marco Roth

No more tubs for me." I jumped off the bed and pulled on a pair of Pack sweats. "They make me lose all sense."
Curran sprawled on the bed with a big self-satisfied smile. "Want to know a secret?"
"Sure."
"It's not the bathtub, baby."
Well, aren't we smug. I picked up the corner of the lowest mattress and made a show of looking under it.
"What are you looking for?"
"A pea Your Majesty."
"What?"
"You heard me."
I jumped back as he lunged and his fingers missed me by an inch.
"Getting slow in your old age."
"I thought you liked it slow."
A flashback to last night mugged me and my mind executed a full stop.
He laughed. "Ran out of snappy comebacks?"
"Hush. I'm trying to think of one. — Ilona Andrews

Since the last tour I have done a lot of extensive travel to Iraq, Kuwait, Siberia, South Korea and other places and picked up some hopefully interesting stories. We are living in interesting times and as bad as things are, I draw considerable inspiration from some of the things I'm seeing and people I'm meeting. I'm looking forward to getting out on the road and talking about it all. — Henry Rollins