Quotes & Sayings About Poor Boy

I'm warning you. I'm going to get waxy. D'you see? You're not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island! So don't try it on, my poor misguided boy, or else
Simon found he was looking into a vast mouth. There was blackness within, a blackness that spread. — William Golding

Please don't entertain for a moment the utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished writing. Read what the great ones have said about their jobs; how they never sit down to their work without a sigh of distress and never get up from it witout a sigh of relief. Do you imagine that your Muse is forever flamelike
breathing the inspired word, the wonderful situation, the superb solution into your attentive ear? ... Believe me, my poor boy, if you wait for inspiration in our set-up, you'll wait for ever. — Ngaio Marsh

I was a very poor young black boy in New Orleans, just a face without a name, swimming in a sea of poverty trying to survive. — Tyler Perry

If the poor boy cannot come to education,
education must go to him — Swami Vivekananda

A false-hearted lover is worse than a thief.
For a thief will just rob you and take what you have,
But a false-hearted lover will lead you to the grave.
And the grave will decay you and turn you to dust;
Not one boy in a hundred a poor girl can trust. — Ira Levin

With five chances on each hand and one unwavering aim, no boy, however poor, need despair. There is bread and success for every youth under the American flag who has energy and ability to seize his opportunity. — Orison Swett Marden

All boys wish to be manly; but they often try to become so by copying the vices of men rather than their virtues. They see men drinking, smoking, swearing; so these poor little fellows sedulously imitate such bad habits, thinking they are making themselves more like men. They mistake rudeness for strength, disrespect to parents for independence. They read wretched stories about boy brigands and boy detectives, and fancy themselves heroes when they break the laws, and become troublesome and mischievous. Out of such false influences the criminal classes are recruited. Many a little boy who only wishes to be manly, becomes corrupted and debased by the bad examples around him and the bad literature which he reads. The cure for this is to give him good books, show him truly noble examples from life and history, and make him understand how infinitely above this mock-manliness is the true courage which ennobles human nature. — James Clarke

My child died last night - and now I shall be alone again, if I must really go on living. They will come tomorrow, strange, hulking, black-clad men bringing a coffin, and they will put him in it, my poor boy, my only child. — Stefan Zweig

Choose the beautiful story, with the bright lights, the one where he can hear us," she told him. "That's the true one. Not the scary story, not the sharks." "But isn't it more scary to be utterly alone upon the waters, completely cut off from everyone, no friends, no family, no direction, nothing but a radio for solace?" She touched the side of his face. "That's your story," she said. "You're trying to tell me your story, aren't you?" Jun Do stared at her. "Oh, you poor boy," she said. "You poor little boy. It doesn't have to be that way. Come in off the water, things can be different. You don't need a radio, I'm right here. You don't have to choose the alone." ========== The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) (Johnson, Adam) — Anonymous

Poor boy," the libertine then said, "he builds machines to count the infinite, and we have terrified him with the eternal silence of too many infinities. Voila, the end of a fine vocation. — Umberto Eco

You are a disaster. You flinch at the slightest noise, and you nearly ripped that poor boy's head off for dropping his sword."

"The boy was stumbling about, wielding an unsheathed blade. I find it fortunate he didn't trip and impale himself on the cold steel of his own stupidity."

"Your sarcasm gets more brutal with age. And with arrogance. It's not nearly as entertaining now. — Renee Ahdieh

He turns to me and he whispers really loudly because secretly he wants other people to hear, 'I'm in love.' I roll my eyes, because he falls in love every hour on the hour with some poor new boy. — John Green

She held out a small voice recorder. 'By the way, could you describe exactly how you felt at the moment of impact? I'm writing this short story
'
'Put that away, Hazel,' hissed Mam. 'The poor boy is in pain.'
Hazel persisted. 'Would that be a white-hot pain? Or more of a dull throbbing pain? — Eoin Colfer

Believe me, I know all about bottle acoustics. I spent much of the sixth century in an old sesame oil jar, corked with wax, bobbing about in the Red Sea. No one heard my hollers. In the end an old fisherman set me free, by which time I was desperate enough to grant him several wishes. I erupted in the form of a smoking giant, did a few lightning bolts, and bent to ask him his desire. Poor old boy had dropped dead of a heart attack. There should be a moral there, but for the life of me I can't see one. — Jonathan Stroud

In water so fine, a few minutes of bad memory all but disappear downstream, washed away by ten thousand belly busters, a million cannonballs. Paradise was never heaven-high when I was a boy but waist-deep, an oasis of cutoff blue jeans and raggedy Converse sneakers, sweating bottles of Nehi Grape and Orange Crush, and this stream. I remember the antidote of icy water against my blistered skin, and the taste of mushy tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, unwrapped from twice-used aluminum foil. I saw my first water moccasin here, and my first real girl, and being a child of the foot washers I have sometimes wondered if this was my Eden, and my serpent. If it was, I didn't hold out any longer than that first poor fool did. — Rick Bragg

She came right up to me and put her snow-white hand on my arm. "You poor boy," she murmured, "you poor boy."
I'm not a boy, and I'm not poor, and I wished the hell she would get away. She has a clever face, but I felt in it, that night, the force of a great sadness and great malice. "I see a rope around your neck," she said sadly. — John Cheever

I don't want you to describe to me - not ever - what you were doing to that poor boy to make him sound like that; but if you ever do it again, please cover his mouth with your hand. — John Irving

When I was young and miserable and pretty
And poor, I'd wish
What all girls wish: to have a husband,
A house and children. Now that I'm old, my wish
Is womanish:
That the boy putting groceries in my car
See me. — Randall Jarrell

Oh, say! what is that thing call'd light, Which I must ne'er enjoy? What are the blessings of the sight? Oh, tell your poor blind boy! — Colley Cibber

I've spent a lot of time in the States, and the Big Country elates and irritates me simultaneously. It is a big boy child that frequently needs a hug: sometimes needing the prissiness of the world to remind it that its voice is not the only one. Africa is older and wiser, a poor grandmother, a pillaged woman, but still a strong woman. She knows she is a daughter of Earth. There are the sexy aunts of Asia and Europe, and of course, the fussy, once histrionic mother that is Britain. But it was Africa taught America the lesson of liberty. — Sean J Halford

Poor Scott. Briefly, briefly, as a boy on the verge of manhood, he'd been so handsome and promising that the sequel must have seemed a dream; behind the acne and brain damage and bewildering alienation, he was a golden boy still. Probably he thought he'd given his poor old stepmom the thrill of her life. One thing was certain: at that moment he'd loved her and was sorry for ever thinking ill of her - she'd packed his lunch! - and wanted to convey this in some meaningful way. Probably, too, he was drunk and/or high. As Scott's only brother - a person who shared his sense of humor and some of his darker tendencies too - I considered explaining as much to Sandra, for what it was worth. Instead I said, "Welcome to the club." ". . . No!" I nodded. "Tongue and all." Sandra — Blake Bailey

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time. — Abraham Lincoln

Kaladin frowned. "Wait. Are you wearing cologne? In prison?"
"Well, there was no need to be barbaric, just because I was incarcerated."
"Storms, you're spoiled," Kaladin said, smiling.
"I'm refined, you insolent farmer," Adolin said. Then he grinned. "Besides, I'll have you know that I had to use cold water for my baths while here."
"Poor boy. — Brandon Sanderson

When I was Mare Barrow of the Stilts, I thought the same way. I wondered what would happen if I survived conscription, and saw what that future held. A friendly marriage to the fish boy with green eyes, children we could love, a poor stilt home. It seemed like a dream back then, an impossibility. And it still is. It always will be. I do not love Kilorn, not the way he wants me to. I never will. — Victoria Aveyard

By the next afternoon, a shepherd boy had heard his shouts and he'd been hauled up the cliffs and confined to an empty pigeon house, the sole survivor of his doomed mission.
Gone cracked, though, from the ordeal. Ranting in perfect English about dragons and a young woman who could fly.
No one believed him. A few people swore the airships had suffered lightning strikes, although the night had seemed so clear. A few more vowed they'd spotted them off the bluffs and fired at them, and that had brought them down.
Whatever it had been, everyone seemed certain of two things. It had not been a dragon, and it had not been the poor, tormented Duke of Idylling. — Shana Abe

Baseball was rooted not just in the past but in the culture of the country; it was celebrated in the nation's literature and songs. When a poor American boy dreamed of escaping his grim life, his fantasy probably involved becoming a professional baseball player. It was not so much the national sport as the binding national myth. — David Halberstam

But seriously, because you both fail to understand what is happening to you. You cannot see or hear or smell the truth of what you see
and you, looking for destiny! It's classic! And the boy, this automaton, he was made of the very mud of the region and he sees far less than you. Poor stumblers, neither of you can see the other. To you he is a mark on the score-card of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child, or even less
a black amorphous thing. And you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force
— Ralph Ellison

He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away; a stranger, yet everyone was his friend; no longer young, but as happy-hearted as a boy; plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many. — Louisa May Alcott

he hoped she would be happy, and never regret having driven her poor boy out into the unfeeling world to suffer and die. — Mark Twain

The state of my poor boy's health prevents me from leaving home for a night. — Edward Irving

Going to say it anyway," said Graff. "Poor fool of a boy. Pacifism only works with an enemy that can't bear to do murder against the innocent. How many times are you lucky enough to get an enemy like that? — Orson Scott Card

Jack stares at me blankly. 'A what?' he asks.

I choke back the laugh. 'A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don't seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.'

'What are you talking about?' Jack asks, 'A boy? She's just a kid.'

I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. 'She's seventeen. She's not a kid anymore.'

Jack looks like he's about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. 'If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I'm going to kill him,' he says.

Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn't require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London. — Sarah Alderson

My views on everything from welfare to a balanced budget to affirmative action can be traced to what Buddy and Helen Watts taught me as a young boy growing up poor but proud in Eufaula. — J. C. Watts

There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun, and it's been the ruin of many a poor boy and God I know I'm one. — Bob Dylan

You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since-on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. — Charles Dickens

I was so poor growing up ... if I wasn't a boy ... I'd have nothing to play with. — Rodney Dangerfield

Rocky is a poor Italian boy from a poor Italian family, and he appreciates the buck more than almost anybody. He's only got two halfway decent purses so far, and it was like a tiger tasting blood — Rocky Marciano

From high Meonia's rocky shores I came, Of poor decsent, Acoetes is my name, My sire was measly born: no oxen ploughed, His fruitful fields, nor in his pastures lowed, His whole estate within the waters lay' With lines and hooks he caught the finny prey; His art was all his livelehood, which he Thus with his dying lips bequeathed to me: In streams, my boy, and rivers take thy chance; There swims', said he, Thy whole inheritance. — Ovid

London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him. All England wanted him too. England had so longed for him, and hoped for him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the people went nearly mad for joy. Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed each other and cried. Everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich — Mark Twain

I dare to imagine a country where every child I hold in my hands, are all God's children, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of whether they're boy or girl, regardless of religion, regardless of rich or poor, that every child I hold in my hands, will have the same chance to reach her full potential or his full potential. That is the goodness of our country. That is the essence of the American dream. — Paul Wellstone

She's my friend, the boy said simply. That's who she is and that's enough for me. As Minli looked at the buffalo boy, aglow with happiness against his poor surroundings, she saw it was enough for him. More than enough, as the smile that kept curling up on his face told her. — Grace Lin

Ash," Mab crooned as he drew near. "My poor boy. Rowan told me what happened between the two of you, but I know you had your reasons. Why would you betray me?"
"I love her. — Julie Kagawa

I come from the South and I know what war is, for I have seen its terrible wreckage and ruin. It is easy for me as President to declare war. I do not have to fight, and neither do the gentlemen on the Hill who now clamor for it. It is some poor farmer's boy, or the son of some poor widow - who will have to do the fighting and dying. — Woodrow Wilson

Well, if you're through taunting poor Mike, are you ready to go? (Nick)
You give me any lip, little boy, and there won't be enough left of you to run through a sieve. (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You cannot tell a poor boy from a small country town on the plains of South Dakota who has had the opportunity to be a teacher, a mayor, a senator, and a vice president, that America is not a nation of promise. — Hubert H. Humphrey

When Michael Jackson, a poor black boy who grew up to be a rich, white woman, married Elvis Presley's daughter the Scientologist. Makes you proud to be an American, dudn't it? — Molly Ivins

I saw the way my eyes looked then, saw them with the eyes I have now, and I heard my cry once more, the timbre of my voice, the extreme politeness of a girl of eight who shouts after a boy of eight to remind him not to forget his eraser and yet can't call him by his name, James, or Crawford, the way we do in school, and opts, consciously or unconsciously, for the diminutive Jimmy, which indicates fondness, a verbal fondness, a personal fondness, since only she, in that world-encompassing instant, calls him that, a name that somehow casts in a new light the fondness or solicitude implicit in the gesture of warning him he's forgotten something, don't forget your eraser, or your pencil, though in the end it's simply an expression, verbally poor or verbally rich, of happiness. — Roberto Bolano

The poor guy," she said, and this was remorse over her savage speed and rashness as well as pity for this boy, haunting the mouth of an alley with that toy of swift decisions. — Saul Bellow

I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain. I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It's a terrible burden to carry. All sentient life is sacred. — Yann Martel

Yes, King Edward VI lived only a few years, poor boy, but he lived them worthily. — Mark Twain

You poor lonely boy,' she cried, 'it's so dreadful for you to have no parents.'
Well, as my mother was a whore, and my father a drunk, I daresay I don't miss much. — W. Somerset Maugham

War? War is blood and shit and men maddened with pain calling for their mother as they bleed to death. There's no honour in it, boy." His eyes shifted, meeting Vaelin's. "You'll see it, you poor little bastard. You'll see it all. — Anthony Ryan

But he might have had a bang on the head!" said Joan. "Poor little boy, he thinks he was a rat!"
"Hmm," said the receptionist, and wrote rodent delusion on a pink slip of paper. — Philip Pullman

Michael Jackson was a poor black boy who grew up to be a rich white woman — Molly Ivins

I'd get more applause than some because I was just seventeen. If they didn't clap at the end of my act I would limp off stage and boy would they feel guilty. They would all burst into tremendous applause as they saw this poor cripple kid walking off. — Jim Dale

The influenza has busted me a good deal; I have no spring; and am headachy. So as my good Red Lion Counter begged me for another Butcher's Boy
I turned me to- what thinkest 'ou
to Tushery, by the mass! Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every tusher tushes me so free, that may I be tushed if the whole thing is worth a tush. The Black Arrow: A Tale of Tunstall Forest is his name: tush! a poor thing! — Robert Louis Stevenson

For a country boy, poor as I was, whose constant worry was to be able to have enough to eat, the Army guaranteed one's survival. — Mo Yan

. . . though if Fanshawe had not spoken in so unbecoming a way, Laurence would have liked to keep Carver out of it, as he knew the boy had a poor head for heights, which struck him as a grave impediment for an aviator. — Naomi Novik

Your parents don't give you much love, do they?'
'I don't need that stuff,' I told her.
'Henry, everybody needs love.'
'I don't need anything.'
'You poor boy. — Charles Bukowski

I admired the thought of a common boy feeling brave enough to face the challenge of becoming prince. But no one was going to tie me down before I was ready, and I was going to make sure those poor suckers knew what they were signing up for. — Kiera Cass

When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant father will have liars for his children; do you know that? A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies. — Robert Green Ingersoll

At twenty-one, Richard Wright was not the world-famous author he would eventually be. But poor and black, he decided he would read and no one could stop him. Did he storm the library and make a scene? No, not in the Jim Crow South he didn't. Instead, he forged a note that said, "Dear Madam: Will you please let this nigger boy have some books by HL Mencken?" (because no one would write that about themselves, right?), and checked them out with a stolen library card, pretending they were for someone else. With the stakes this high, you better be willing to bend the rules or do something desperate or crazy. To thumb your nose at the authorities and say: What? This is not a bridge. I don't know what you're talking about. Or, in some cases, giving the middle finger to the people trying to hold you down and blowing right through their evil, disgusting rules. Pragmatism is not so much realism as flexibility. — Ryan Holiday

Sanguine chuckled. I like you, boy. You got optimism in these bones. I like you so much that I ain't gonna tell you what I did to poor old Jethro, the first Jethro, may he rest in peace, may they someday find his head. — Derek Landy

EDGAR
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled
my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of
my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with
her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that
slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it:
wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman
out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth,
wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of
silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot
out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen
from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.
Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.
Storm still. — William Shakespeare

That was always my experience-a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton ... However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Darling Daddy,
Poor Saffy. She had a big fight in the boys toilets on Monday, did you know? A very big fight and Sarah helped and it was terrifying. Said a boy in my class who has a brother who was there.
Saffy washed her hands and said Never Ever Never Dare You Touch My Brother. (Indigo). And the plug holes were blocked with hair.
Love from Rose.
-Sarah's mother has given us soup. Soup soup soup and then it was all gone.
L.F.R. — Hilary McKay

Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother's porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums. That's Mama! Inej had cried. Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart. That — Leigh Bardugo

Then let not what I cannot have
My cheer of mind destroy.
Whilst thus I sing, I am a king,
Although a poor blind boy! — Colley Cibber

And he knew that he would never come again, and that lost magic would not come again. Lost now was all of it-the street, the heat, King's Highway, and Tom the Piper's son, all mixed in with the vast and drowsy murmur of the Fair, and with the sense of absence in the afternoon, and the house that waited, and the child that dreamed. And out of the enchanted wood, that thicket of man's memory, Eugene knew that the dark eye and the quiet face of his friend and brother-poor child, life's stranger, and life's exile, lost like all of us, a cipher in blind mazes, long ago-the lost boy was gone forever, and would not return. — Thomas Wolfe

Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart. — Leigh Bardugo

Cowell Devlin sighed. Yes, he understood Anna Wetherell at long last, but it was not a happy understanding. Devlin had known many women of poor prospects and limited means, whose only transport out of the miserable cage of their unhappy circumstance was the flight of the fantastic. Such fantasies were invariably magical - angelic patronage, invitations into paradise - and Anna's story, touching though it was, showed the same strain of the impossible. Why, it was painfully clear! The most eligible bachelor of Anna's acquaintance possessed a love so deep and pure that all respective differences between them were rendered immaterial? He was not dead - he was only missing? He was sending her 'messages' that proved the depth of his love - and these were messages that only she could hear? It was a fantasy, Devlin thought. It was a fantasy of the girl's own devising. The boy could only be dead. — Eleanor Catton

Your friends are at the house.'
I sit up, straight. 'Who'?
'I don't know. Weird people. The Sullivan girl, whose father got the Gosford police to pick you up.'
'Siobhan?'
'And another one who's making cups of tea for everyone, and keeping the boy who's telling Luca fart jokes away from the girl who says he's "the last bastion of patriarchal poor taste".'
'Justine, Thomas and Tara.'
And the drug fiend, Jimmy, is keeping Mia calm and the Trombal boy's rung about ten times. I don't like his manner on the phone.'
'You won't like any guy's manner on the phone. — Melina Marchetta

The Mayor about the fable of the Prodigal Son:
'But he came home.'
'Yes, his courage failed him. He felt very alone on that pig farm. There was no branch of the Party to which he could look for help. Das Kapital had not yet been written, so he was unable to situate himself in the class struggle. Is it any wonder that he wavered for a time, poor boy? — Graham Greene

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy. — Elizabeth Bishop

Gregory is a good boy, though all the Latin he has learned, all the sonorous periods of the great authors, have rolled through his head and out again, like stones. Still, you think of Thomas More's boy: offspring of a scholar all Europe admired, and poor young John can barely stumble through his Pater Noster. Gregory is a fine archer, a fine horseman, a shining star in the tilt yard, and his manners cannot be faulted. He speaks reverently to his superiors, not scuffling his feet or standing on one leg, and he is mild and polite with those below him. He knows how to bow to foreign diplomats in the manner of their own countries, sits at table without fidgeting or feeding spaniels, can neatly carve and joint any fowl if requested to serve his elders. He doesn't slouch around with his jacket off one shoulder, or look in windows to admire himself, or stare around in church, or interrupt old men, or finish their stories for them. If anyone sneezes, he says, 'Christ help you! — Hilary Mantel

My dad left when I was a little boy and I grew up with my mother's family. There were foundations in the U.S. where Jewish people got together and sent money to Cuba, so we got some of that. We were a poor family, but I was always a happy kid. — William Levy

Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? — Herman Melville

Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child's. She has no guile in her. And she never speaks. And if she does I hate to bend my head to hear what she says. And in the pause I can hear my heart. Her little bits of embroidery, her scraps of silk, her halcyon sleeves, she cut out of the cloth some admirer gave her once, some poor boy struck with love for her...and yet she has never succumbed. Her little sleeves, her seed pearl necklace...she has nothing...she expects nothing...' A tear at last sneaks from Henry's eye, meanders down his cheek and vanishes into the mottled grey and ginger of his beard. — Hilary Mantel

Amitav Ghosh's multigenerational saga The Glass Palace, set in colonial Burma, India, and Malaya, tells the story of Rajkumar, once a poor Indian boy, who becomes a wealthy teak trader in Burma, and lovely Dolly, former child-maid to the queen and second princess of Burma. — Nancy Pearl

Ever were the rich folk, the pashas of Calimport, praised for their philanthropy, when in fact, the gold they so charitably gave actually cost them nothing in terms of their own standard of living. A poor woman might take in an orphaned boy, without fanfare, though the proportional cost was surely much higher. But, heigh-ho, all must cheer for those philanthropists! — R.A. Salvatore

When you look for a man- what you want to look for is a man with the heart of a poor boy and the mind of a conqueror. — C. JoyBell C.

I reach up and pat them both on the head. Poor things. If you had a boy that looked like Logan, you'd be kissing him every chance you had, too. — C.J. Redwine

In the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, when I was a boy, everybody was poor, but didn't know it; and everybody was comfortable and did know it. — Mark Twain

Rich kid," Shiva yelled, "you don't know one damn thing! What purpose, man? What thing in the whole sister-sleeping world got reason, yara? For what reason you're rich and I'm poor? Where's the reason in starving, man? God knows how many millions of damn fools living in this country, man, and you think there's a purpose! Man, I'll tell you
you got to get what you can, do what you can with it, and then you got to die. That's reason, rich boy. Everything else is only mother-sleeping wind! — Salman Rushdie

I did not grow up in poverty. But I did grow up with a poor boy's sense of longing, in my case not for what my family had never had, but for what we had had and lost. — Mohsin Hamid

Pray, what's the nature of his trouble?" Prudence asked solicitously.
"Oh, cursed bad news, my boy. That old aunt of his from whom he has expectations has rallied, and they say she'll last another ten years. Poor old Devereux, y'know! Must try and raise his spirits. — Georgette Heyer

Through it all, this wild life on and off the road , through Jordanian deserts , Spanish islands, German prisons, Caribbean tax scams, halls of fame,wine, women, and all the drugs under the sun - one constant companion has never abandoned me . My first true love : singing Its been the savior of many poor boy, and God I know I'm one — Eric Burdon

You make me laugh, with your metaphysical anguish, its just that you're scared silly, frightened of life, of men of action, of action itself, of lack of order. But everything is disorder, dear boy. Vegetable, mineral and animal, all
disorder, and so is the multitude of human races, the life of man, thought,
history, wars, inventions, business and the arts, and all theories, passions
and systems. Its always been that way. Why are you trying to make something out
of it? And what will you make? what are you looking for? There is no Truth.
There's only action, action obeying a million different impulses, ephemeral
action, action subjected to every possible and imaginable contingency and
contradiction, Life. Life is crime, theft, jealousy, hunger, lies, disgust,
stupidity, sickness, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, piles of corpses. what can you do about it, my poor friend? — Blaise Cendrars

When I got outta High School I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis, Memphis. — Elvis Presley

God," prayed my grandmother, "purge the devil from this poor boy's body! Just look at all those sores! They make me sick, God! Look at them! It's the devil, God, dwelling in this boy's body. Purge the devil from his body, Lord!"

"God," said my grandmother, "why do you allow the devil to dwell inside this body's body? Don't you see how the devil is enjoying this? Look at these sores, 0 Lord, I am about to vomit just looking at them! They are red and big and full! — Charles Bukowski

I have had an aversion to good spelling for sixty years and more, merely for the reason that when I was a boy there was not a thing I could do creditably except spell according to the book. It was a poor and mean distinction, and I early learned to disenjoy it. I suppose that this is because the ability to spell correctly is a talent, not an acquirement. There is some dignity about an acquirement, because it is a product of your own labor. It is earned, whereas to be able to do a thing merely by the grace of God, and not by your own effort, transfers the thing to our heavenly home
where possibly it is a matter of pride and satisfaction, but it leaves you naked and bankrupt. — Mark Twain

And so the picture that I showed her that Sunday, a picture I'd seen countless times since I was a boy, brought home to me for the first time the strangeness of my relationship to the people I was interviewing, people who were rich in memories but poor in keepsakes, whereas I was so rich in the keepsakes but had no memories to go with them. — Daniel Mendelsohn

Now they all felt the need to relieve themselves, especially the poor boy who could not hold it in any longer, in fact, however reluctant we might be to admit it, these distasteful realities of life also have to be considered, when the bowels function normally, anyone can have ideas, debate, for example, whether there exists a direct relationship between the eyes and feelings, or whether the sense of responsibility if the natural consequence of clear vision, but when we are in great distress and plagued by pain and anguish that is when the animal side of our nature becomes most apparent. — Jose Saramago

Common sense is a very poor guide to scientific insight for it represents cultural prejudice more often than it reflects the native honesty of a small boy before the naked emperor. — Stephen Jay Gould

Don't let us quarrel. We all have our weaknesses, dear friends; so we must strive to be considerate of one another. And since this poor boy is hungry and has nothing whatver to eat, let us all remain quiet and allow him to sleep; for it is said that in sleep a mortal may forget even hunger. - Scarecrow — L. Frank Baum

Nobody approves of the ballerina and the poor boy. — Nichele Reese

Sometimes it seems that half of the fairy tales of the world are some form of Cinderella, ugly duckling, or poor boy story, telling of the little person who has no power or possessions who ends up being king or queen, prince or princess. We write it off as wishful dreaming, when it is actually the foundational pattern of disguise or amnesia, loss, and recovery. Every Beauty is sleeping, it seems, before it can meet its Prince. The duckling must be "ugly," or there will be no story. The knight errant must be wounded, or he will never even know what the Holy Grail is, much less find it. Jesus must be crucified, or there can be no resurrection. It is written in our hardwiring, but can only be heard at the soul level. It will usually be resisted and opposed at the ego level. — Richard Rohr

Oh, thank goodness you're here," the priest said. "I think this poor boy tried to kill himself with a sledgehammer. — Joey Comeau

'Is that really the best you can say? An average-looking boy? An awful lot of boys are average-looking, S.Q.!' And poor S.Q., he just kept arguing that 'this boy was especially average-looking.' " ~ Kate Wetherall, The Mysterious Benedict Society — Trenton Lee Stewart

Poor control-freak Jeb. Your world's way off-kilter when little Alyssa's not tripping over her chastity belt. Is that it, bad boy? — A.G. Howard