Prodding Quotes & Sayings

The size of the Earth has been known for more than two thousand years, although the number was lost or disputed when the Earth went from being round to being flat again in the Middle Ages (under the prodding of Christian heaven-watchers, the Greek philosophers' [Eratosthenes 276-194 BC] work was erased in Europe and preserved only by Muslim scientists in the Middle East and North Africa). — Marq De Villiers

Beds empty! No note! Car gone - could have crashed - out of my mind with worry - did you care? - never, as long as I've lived - you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy - "
"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred.
"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job - "
It seemed to go on for hours. Mrs. Weasley had shouted herself hoarse before she turned on Harry, who backed away.
"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear," she said. — J.K. Rowling

Back at home, after some prodding from Tereza, he admitted that he had been jealous watching her dance with a colleague of his. "You mean you were really jealous?" she asked him ten times or more, incredulously, as though someone had just informed her she had been awarded a Nobel Peace prize. Then she put her arm around his waist and began dancing across the room. The step she used was not the one she had shown off in the bar. It was more like a village polka, a wild romp that sent her legs flying in the air and her torso bounding all over the room, with Tomas in tow. Before long, unfortunately, she bagan to be jealous herself, and Tomas saw her jealously not as a Nobel Prize, but as a burden, a burden he would be saddled with until not long before his death. — Milan Kundera

The mace prodded
Will in the back again. That little habit was starting to annoy him and he was tempted to take the weapon from the sergeant major and do a little prodding of his own. — John Flanagan

What is mathematics? Ask this question of person chosen at random, and you are likely to receive the answer "Mathematics is the study of number." With a bit of prodding as to what kind of study they mean, you may be able to induce them to come up with the description "the science of numbers." But that is about as far as you will get. And with that you will have obtained a description of mathematics that ceased to be accurate some two and a half thousand years ago! — Keith Devlin

Motivation factors include challenging work, recognition, responsibility, and personal growth. Feelings that you are making a meaningful contribution to work arise from intrinsic conditions of the work itself. Motivation is much less about external prodding or stimulation, and much more about what's inside of you, and inside of your work. — Clayton M Christensen

Since the time of the ancient Greeks a democracy has depended on its philosophers and creative artists. It can only flourish by continuous probing, prodding, and questioning of the social conditions under which man exists and tries to better himself. One of the first moves of a dictatorship is to stifle the artists and thinkers who have the ability to stir up dissent from any prescribed dogma which might enslave them. Because the artist can arouse the curiosity and conscience of his community, he becomes a threat to those who have taken power. — Uta Hagen

We're not going to create a more equal society by not prodding at it, are we? — Laura Wade

I was born with God-given gifts of very talented musical ability and exceptoinal physical coordination. I always needed prodding to practice piano, violin, cornet or French horn. I had to be pulled away from any athletic participation. Now, at 63, I look back on my athletic feats - All-American, All-Pro Quaterback, College and Pro Football Hall of Fame - and I can honestly say I would trade these all if I had been smart enough to pursue my musical career. YOUNG PEOPLE - don't make the same mistake. — Otto Graham

We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs. — Carl Sagan

Trace asked Jackson, "Why the hell are you even here?"
Jackson looked far too uneasy for Trace's peace of mind. "I know you didn't want me here. I got the message loud and clear when you cut the call. Thing is, your little lady was damned insistent that I do something."
"Like get stunned and tied up?"
"You try planning with a hellcat breathing fire in your ear, making demands, prodding you-"
"Priss?"
"She's a terror. That name doesn't suit her at all. — Lori Foster

The sheep are in a terrible mood today as Bailey attempts to usher them from one field to another. They have resisted prodding, swearing, and pushing, insisting that the grass in their current field is much nicer than the grass just on the other side of the gate in the low stone wall, no matter how much Bailey tries to persuade them otherwise. — Erin Morgenstern

It is my necessary breath of life to understand and expression is the only justification of life that I can feel without prodding. — Ruth Benedict

What are you, a door mouse?!" Cloudtail mewed impatiently, prodding Lionblaze. Lionblaze looked up at the white warrior looking down at him, "Aww did you have to do that?! I was having a really great dream!"
"And now you can go on a really great water patrol!" Cloudtail grumbled. — Erin Hunter

We' had come to identify who was behind all the prodding and the pushing. Everything that happens to you, is really your very own. "Nobody is responsible for 'you'. 'You' are whole and sole responsible for yourself. — Dada Bhagwan

The lone guard was asleep at his desk. Loch thoughtfully woke him up by prodding his throat with her sword, and it was agreed that the guard would spend the night peacefully and quietly bound and gagged in the broom closet. — Patrick Weekes

He was prodding her. Let him. They were on safe ground. "Well, in trying to satisfy one amendment, it looks like they rubbed out another one. The Tenth. It's only a small amendment, only one sentence long, but it seemed to be the one that meant the most, somehow. — Harper Lee

I am fascinated by religion. (That's a completely different thing from believing in it!) It has had such an incalculably huge effect on human affairs. What is it? What does it represent? Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it? I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing. — Douglas Adams

The material memories are not usually part of what is said about a picture, and that is a fault in interpretation because every painting captures a certain resistance of paint, a prodding gesture of the brush, a speed and insistence in the face of mindless matter ... — James Elkins

Opening his lips over Tom's cockhead, he closed his eyes, working his tongue in lazy circles and prodding the tip of it against the bundle of nerves beneath the smooth, swollen glans. Despite — Bey Deckard

When you father dies! What then?"
Lord Needham looked up from his pheasant. "I beg your pardon?"
Lady Needham waved one hand in the air as though she hadn't time to think of her husband's feelings, instead prodding, "He shan't live forever, Penelope! What then?"
Penelope could not think of why this was in any way relevant. "Well, that shall be very sad, I imagine."
Lady Needham shook her head in frustration. "Penelope!"
"Mother, I honestly have no idea what you are implying."
"Who will take care of you? When your father dies?"
"Is Father planning to die soon?"
"No," her father said.
"One never knows!" Tears were welling in the marchioness' eyes.
"Oh, for God's-" Lord Needham had had enough. "I'm not dying. And I take no small amount of offence in the fact the thought simply rolled off your tongue. — Sarah MacLean

And then there was that stupid social networking system, how it had just seemed like the most convenient vessel for the average narcissist. How I'd despised those who couldn't eat a meal without prodding through their glowing portable Internet devices, searching for some tasty piece of gossip, or perhaps just something to complain about.
But that social network had become an overnight epidemic - I'd watched as the daily ways in which we'd lived our lives became molded to fit this shallow instrument. It was a vast change - whether it was social evolution or de- evolution, I wasn't quite sure; but before I knew it, by society's standards, it was I that had become the social leper. — Noah Fregger

Is this your holiday homework?" asked Sarah. "Don't do it, Rose! And Eve will write you a note to say it's iniquitous to give eight-year-olds homework. You will, won't you, Eve?"
"I could never spell 'iniquitous,' Sarah darling!"
"Hot concrete," said Rose mournfully, prodding her porridge.
"Write this," ordered Saffron. "'The ancient Egyptians are all dead. Their days are very quiet.' Porridge is meant to look like hot concrete. Eat it up ... Read the next question!" ...
"What would you say if you bumped into Tutankhamen in the street?"
"'Sorry!'" said Sarah at once. "Put that."
"We have to answer in proper sentences."
"'Sorry, but it was your fault! You were walking sideways! — Hilary McKay

Technology is a global thing and wherever you go, people are prodding the same devices and worrying in the same way and have had their lives slightly altered in the same way. — Charlie Brooker

She leveled Penelope with a look. "Penelope, you must think, darling! When your father dies! What then?" Lord Needham looked up from his pheasant. "I beg your pardon?" Lady Needham waved one hand in the air as though she hadn't time to think about her husband's feelings, instead prodding, "He shan't live forever, Penelope! What then?" Penelope could not think of why this was in any way relevant. "Wel , that shal be very sad, I imagine. — Sarah MacLean

The core of a soldier is moral discipline. It is intertwined with the discipline of physical and mental achievement. It motivates doing on your own what is right without prodding. It is an inner critic that refuses to tolerate less than your best. Total discipline overcomes adversity and physical stamina draws on an inner strength that says "drive on". — William G. Bainbridge

Toward the middle and end of the Fifties, West European countries became somewhat more important as providers of aid to underdeveloped countries. It was partly due to the prodding of the United States that these countries, as they regained economic viability, should shoulder their share of the aid burden. — Gunnar Myrdal

I am. That has not changed. I am the villain. I am the one you should curse, not praise. I am no hero. Heroes look to fix what lies before them and head home after the leak is patched. A villain will remain poking and prodding his achievement long after they've won. Evil never sleeps. It's always looking for more ways to expand on its conquest. — Charles Lee

I knew very well what Lars meant when he praised me, and held me, and indicated through a caress that he liked me just the way I was; I knew, better than he knew himself, that he wanted to ensure he never be confronted with what, in his own personality, might need pruning or pushing or prodding, that behind every show of support he gave, for me here, for me now, there lurked a terrified refusal to acknowledge his own potential to grow. — Sara Levine

The crusade to convince us that global warming can only be dealt with by wealth destruction and higher energy prices began with an effort to 'raise awareness,' which turned into some delicate nanny-state prodding before efforts to artificially inflate prices. — David Harsanyi

Wells?" Someone was prodding his arm. "Hey, Wells?" Wells's eyes snapped open, draining the last droplets of a dream from his mind. He'd been floating down a canal in Venice. No, wait, he'd been riding a horse into battle alongside Napoleon. Kendall — Kass Morgan

It's different when you're an actor and playing a part, but when it's just you, you feel immensely vulnerable have strangers prodding and prying. — Helena Bonham Carter

We will have to remember where our cranks belong in our national life, so that they can resume their proper roles as lonely guardians of the frontiers of the national imagination, prodding and pushing, getting us to think about things in new ways, but also knowing that their place is of necessity a lonely and humble one. There is nothing wrong with a country that has people who put saddles on their dinosaurs. It's a wonderful show and we should watch them and applaud. We have no obligation to climb aboard and ride. — Charles P. Pierce

Zack stepped toward Mollie, and without asking permission, tugged her into his arms. "Let's dance," he said impulsively. Her eyes widened in alarm. "Don't be ridiculous." Mollie was not the sort to be drawn out of her comfort zone without a little prodding. She tried to skitter out of his arms, but he hauled her back. "Let me do all the work, Mollie. I know what I'm doing." Like any good Pole in Chicago, Zack had been dancing since childhood and confidently led Mollie in a rousing jig. She was clumsy at first, but all she had to do was follow his lead. The tension in her back relaxed, and she learned the steps. Her smile started out hesitant, then bloomed wider. With her face illuminated by firelight and laughter, she was perfect in his arms. — Elizabeth Camden

A few alligators are naturally of the vicious type and inclined to resent it when you prod them with a stick. You can find out which ones these are by prodding them. — Will Cuppy

My mother made me take piano lessons, and because I am her oldest and she had not yet been worn down by the task of prodding five children to practice every day, she kept me practicing despite my whining. — Sheri L. Dew

Easy thing for a spirit to get used to. It is very confining, very limiting. So the child will cry out at suddenly being so limited. Hear this cry. Understand it. And give your children as much of a sense of "unlimitedness" as you possibly can. Next, introduce them to the world you have created with gentleness and care. Be full of care - that is to say, be careful - of what you put into their memory storage units. Children remember everything they see, everything they experience. Why do you spank your children the moment they exit the womb? Do you really imagine this is the only way to get their engines going? Why do you take your babies away from their mothers minutes after they have been separated from the only life-form they have known in all of their present existence? Will not the measuring and the weighing and the prodding and the poking wait for just a moment while the newly born experience the safety and the comfort of that which — Neale Donald Walsch

They agreed, without any prodding, without the shadows of obligation or compromise, on Barack Obama. At first, even though she wished America would elect a black man as president, she thought it impossible, and she could not imagine Obama as president of the United States; he seemed too slight, too skinny, a man who would be blown away by the wind. Hillary Clinton was sturdier. Ifemelu liked to watch Clinton on television, in her square trouser suits, her face a mask of resolve, her prettiness disguised, because that was the only way to convince the world that she was able. Ifemelu — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I crave white on white and black, but my thoughts race in glorious technicolour, prodding me awake, whipping away the warm blanket of invisibility every time it sears to smother my mind in nothing. — Sarah Kane

In the saddle again, Fire mulled over the commander's trust, prodding it around, like a candy in her mouth, trying to decide whether she believed it. — Kristin Cashore

We can become so insensitive to the Spirit's prodding that we become too idle, too self absorbed and too busy with too many things that in the eyes of God, are worthless. — William Branks

Even the vendors sitting on stools around the periphery work steadily at connection, nodding at potential buyers, like a sewing machine prodding its needle into the cloth. — Barbara Kingsolver

I wish my conscience would come alive during the day, when the distractions of daytime life help obscure those sharp, prodding thoughts. — Sara J. Henry

We will eventually build space science labs and hotels, prodding the capability for missions beyond the orbit of the Earth. Our space-hotel guests will be able to take breath-taking excursions, flying a couple of hundred feet above the Moon's surface in small two-man spaceships. In time, we will launch missions to Mars and beyond. — Richard Branson

Rimbaud held the keys to a mystical language that I devoured even as I could not fully decipher it. My unrequited love for him was as real to me as anything I had experienced. At the factory where I had labored with a hard-edged, illiterate group of women, I was harassed in his name. Suspecting me of being a Communist for reading a book in a foreign language, they threatened me in the john, prodding me to denounce him. It was within this atmosphere that I seethed. It was for him that I wrote and dreamed. He became my archangel, delivering me from the mundane horrors of factory life. His hands had chiseled a manual of heaven and I held them fast. The knowledge of him added swagger to my step and this could not be stripped away. I tossed my copy of Illuminations in a plaid suitcase. We would escape together. — Patti Smith

Okay," Glenn said as he stood. "We need to get this back to the . . . ah, forensics lab. I want to know how long the body was stressed before she died."
"An hour. That's all. Perhaps less." We all looked at Nina, and she shrugged, dust and rust marring her makeup like dried blood. "But by all means, do your scientific poking and prodding. She's suffered so much, what's one more indignity? — Kim Harrison

She could almost feel him prodding her; urging her to go on. As the wails of pain and torment assulted her ears, she knew that's exactly what she would do until the war was over and she could crawl into a quiet, dark corner and mourn for the part of her that had died with him. — Jaclyn A. Wilson

(In Austria after VE Day)
Sergeant Mercier ... dressed in a full German officer's uniform, topped off with a monocle for his right eye. Someone got the bright idea to march him over to the company orderly room and turn him in at rifle point to Captain Speirs.
Someone got word to Speirs before Mercier showed up. When troopers brought Mercier up to Speirs's desk, prodding him with bayonets, Speirs did not look up. One of the troopers snapped a salute and declared, "Sir, we have captured this German officer. What should we do with him?"
"Take him out and shoot him," Speirs replied, not looking up.
"Sir," Mercier called out, "sir, please, sir, it's me, Sergeant Mercier."
"Mercier, get out of that silly uniform," Speirs ordered. — Stephen E. Ambrose

I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your creativity - you can feed it with content, with some rational prodding and sleep and things like that, but the mechanisms by which your creativity work are largely unknown. — Ze Frank

My prodding me didn't elicit a reaction. His unseeing eyes stared straight through me. Which was odd. He'd seemed so sane huddled in Cookie's trunk. — Darynda Jones

Instead, we spent our downtime prodding at lifeless characters and wondering how long a human body could subsist on a diet of ramen and Coke before liver function ceased entirely. — Chris Baty

Fish held the silence for so long that I had to restrain myself from prodding her. That's never a good idea. Sometimes people hesitate because they don't have the courage to come out with whatever needs to be said; other times they desperately want to speak but can't find the words. Jabbing them prematurely tends to shut them up. Outwaiting them gives them the time to say more than they intend. — Adam-Troy Castro

The way I was brought up, there was a little bit of prodding to do something more practical, and I wasted a lot of time trying to be a practical person. — James Mercer