Preen Quotes & Sayings

The issue in Web accessibility is the fact that blind and visually-impaired people need the single biggest boost to achieve equivalence, since the real-world Web is a visual medium. — Joe Clark

I will become a firefly and even in the day my glow will be seen in spite of the sun. Let others be as butterflies who preen their wings yet depend on the charity of a flower for life. — Og Mandino

Belial said, "Let us stop wasting time, Nazarene. I know who you are. I saw the entire circus show in the desert. The dreadfully smelly and theatrical Baptizer, the Holy Spirit descending like a vulture, Yahweh blathering from heaven, blah, blah, blah." Jesus drifted off in his memory to a mere month ago, where he had been baptized in the Jordan River not too far from this hellish wasteland. John the Baptizer had left the communal sect of Qumran by the Dead Sea to become a lone voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way for Messiah's advent. He was baptizing people in preparation for that arrival. But when he saw Jesus, he protested that he was not worthy to tie the thong of Jesus's sandal, and that it should be Jesus who baptized John instead. — Brian Godawa

He hated House members who longed only to run for the Senate, and senators who longed only to run for the presidency. He was appalled by what he felt television had done to the Senate by the mid-fifties. It had become a major launching platform for presidential campaigns. He thought television had ruined the Senate as a serious body. All they do there is preen and comb their hair and run for President. It's like a presidential primary over there, — David Halberstam

Young men preen. Old men scheme. — Mason Cooley

Hence Joshua giggled to himself: life appeared to him exactly like the joint burning inexorably toward his fingertips - once it's smoked it cannot be unsmoked. — Aleksandar Hemon

It should have really ticked me off - the conceit of it, the more than a hint of possession, the presumption that he could just walk into my bathroom anytime he liked and - And I didn't care. I wanted to turn in to the feel of those hands,wanted to sink into all that warmth, wanted to preen like a cat being stroked, wanted - Wanted. And it scared the hell out of me. — Karen Chance

And soon all our minds will be flat as a pancake,
With no room for genius exaltation or heartache.
And our children and theirs will preen, smirk and chatter,
With not even the sense to ask what is the matter. — Stevie Smith

Some of us let our dreams die, but others nourish and protect them, nurse them through bad days 'till they bring them to sunshine and light. — Woodrow Wilson

He was the kind of man who turned heads. And he was all hers.
That made her feel ridiculously proud. Her wolf wanted to strut around and freaking preen that this was her male. — Savannah Stuart

Looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat. — Rick Riordan

Away

There is no sorrow
Time heals never;
No loss, betrayal,
Beyond repair.
Balm for the soul, then,
Though grave shall sever
Lover from loved
And all they share.
See the sweet sun shines
The shower is over;
Flowers preen their beauty,
The day how fair!
Brood not too closely
On love, on duty;
Friends long forgotten
May wait you where
Life with death
Brings all to an issue;
None will long mourn for you,
Pray for you, miss you,
Your place left vacant,
You not there. — Walter De La Mare

he jumped in under the running water, squeaked as if in ecstasy, bent his legs to get deeper, and whirred his wings like an egg beater in high gear. The spray flew several meters, soaking the floor and counters near the sink. Then he jumped out dripping wet and fluttered back into the cage to shake vigorously and preen until dry. — Bernd Heinrich

The scientific truth is forged in the fire of experiments, — Zygmunt Miloszewski

You are not like other girls. You are not like other girls ("You are not like other girls," the boys you run with will tell you, and you will try not to let them see you preen under the glancing light of their approval). You learn their books and their language. You laugh at their jokes. You listen to their stories, sit blank-eyed on their couched while they play video games, pass them your English notes. You keep their secrets. You use the words they use about other girls in order to assure yourself that they will never use those words about you. You make yourself into nothingness, a ghost conjured into being only through the desires of boys, the rules of boys, the ideas of boys. You're not like other girls. — Sarah McCarry

In the battles over the Bible in the twentieth century, and now in the twenty-first century, conservatives moved away from the word infallible in favor of inerrant. This happened in part because theological liberals had begun using the word infallible to mean something more like ... oh, I don't know, something more like fallible. And that reminds me of something else. How is it that liberals preen themselves for the virtues of frankness and honesty when they do things like this to words like infallible, or to words like frank and honest for that matter? Or even words like liberal. And now, in the latest go-rounds, the same kind of thing is happening to the word inerrant. Men with solemn faces and a shaky donor base affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, and they also affirm that this is not inconsistent with the subtle truth that the Bible has mistakes in it. The serpent was craftier than all the beasts of the field, having completed some post-doctoral work in Europe. — Anonymous

For many of us, sport has provided the continuity in our lives, the alternative family to the one we left behind. It gives us something to talk about, to preen about, to care about. — John Thorn

At the bat of your lashes peacocks preen. Peacocks preen, elephants remember, camels go for days without water, and dinosaurs of all types become extinct. — Tom Robbins

Oh, but it was splendid the things women were doing for men all the time, thought Jane. Making them feel, perhaps sometimes by no more than a casual glance, that they were loved and admired and desired when they were worthy of none of these things - enabling them to preen themselves and puff out their plumage like birds and bask in the sunshine of love, real or imagined, it didn't matter which. — Barbara Pym

Success and talent aren't even in the same neighborhood. — Jenny Trout

He just looked at his brother and very slowly shook his head, as if to reprove him. 'Ash' was all he said.
The elder Turner reached out and ruffled his younger brother's hair. Mr. Mark Turner did not glower under that touch like a youth pretending to be an adult; neither did he preen like a child being recognized by his elder. He could not have been more than four-and-twenty, the same age as Margaret's second-eldest brother. Yet he stood and regarded his brother, unflinching under his touch, his eyes steady and ageless. — Courtney Milan

Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking,
In need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware,
Keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.
[ ... ]
So primp, preen, prink, pluck, and prize your flesh,
All posturings! All ravishment! All sensibility!
Meanwhile, have you used your mind today? — Carolyn Kizer

Erik got to his feet, aware of her watching him, and tried not to preen at the frank admiration in her eyes. Preening was not manly. — Tiffany Snow

What's with you all, anyway? You jam a stick up your own arse then preen at how tall and straight your standing. — Steven Erikson

She should feel sick. Horrified, stunned. But the horrible truth was, she felt fine. He killed. He killed to protect her. And some
ancient, atavistic streak inside her wanted to preen and purr. She was one sick puppy. — Anne Stuart

We seem to be riding on the top of the highest mast of the tallest ship; and yet at the same time we know that nothing of this sort matters; love is not proved thus, nor great achievements completed thus; so that we sport with the moment and preen our feathers in it lightly. — Virginia Woolf

The Rose does not preen herself to catch my eye. She blooms because she blooms. A saint is a saint until he knows he is one. — Anthony De Mello