Ratlike Quotes & Sayings

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I began two hundred hours of continuous reading in the twelve hours that remained before examinations. Melvin Bloom my roommate flipped the pages of his textbook in a sweet continuous trance. Reviewing the term's work was his pleasure. He went to sleep early. While he slept I bent into the night reading eating Benzedrine smoking cigarettes. Shrieking dwarfs charged across my notes. Crabs asked me questions. Melvin flipped a page blinked flipped another. He effected the same flipping and blinking with no textbook during examinations. For every question answers marched down his optical nerve neck arm and out onto his paper where they stopped in impeccable parade. I'd look at my paper oily scratched by ratlike misery and I'd think of Melvin Bloom. I would think Oh God what is going to happen to me. — Leonard Michaels

Traffic growled and snarled, rising at times to a machine-gun rata-tat-tat, while pedestrians were scuttling about with that desperate ratlike urgency characteristic of all big American cities, but which reaches its ultimate in New York. — Fritz Leiber

[ ... ] when you know, you know. And you don't fight it. You don;t deny the inevitable. You free fall because you know there's someone there to catch you on the other side. — S.L. Jennings

I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself. — Samuel Johnson

I try to, at least once or twice a week, have someone over and model, usually a dancer friend or a poet or someone to come over and just stay still for me. Depending on how exhibitionist they are, it will determine the finished work. And I say, "You're the muse; you come up with it. I'll draw you however you want." — Eric Drooker

To quote an early mentor," I tell the kid, " 'A journalist needs ratlike cunning, a plausible manner, and a little literary ability. — David Mitchell

I'm not going to try to go out there and outdo him. I don't have to try to outdo him, I'm Shaq. — Shaquille O'Neal

Man can only use money to buy man-made goods. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When people believe that every move they make is going to affect their compensation, they tend to get risk averse. — Teresa Amabile

All our lives are activity without meaning; we burrow ratlike into life and we squirm ratlike through it and ratlike we are flung into our graves at the end. Now and then, why shouldn't we hear a voice of prophecy, — Gregory Maguire

Virtually every Chinese citizen whom I came to know well was doing something technically illegal, although usually the infraction was so minor that they didn't have to worry. It might be a sketchy apartment registration or a small business that bought its products from unlicensed wholesalers. Sometimes, it was comic: late at night, there were always people out walking their dogs in Beijing, because the official dog registration was ridiculously expensive. The dogs were usually ratlike Pekingese, led by sleepy owners who snapped to alertness if they saw a cop. They were guerillas walking toy dogs. — Peter Hessler

A generation of men were going off to war. Again.

Don't think about it, Vianne told herself. Don't remember what it was like last time when the men limped home, faces burned, missing arms and legs... — Kristin Hannah

Most of the things humans busied themselves with weren't real, either. But sometimes the mind of the most sensible person encountered something so big, so complex, so alien to all understanding, that it told itself little stories about it instead. Then, when it felt it understood the story, it felt it understood the huge incomprehensible thing. — Terry Pratchett

As I've said, in 2007, we're free to go and we'll just have to do what's best for the business. — Mario Lemieux

I think you should shut the fuck up," Eli said, throwing his bag down with a thud that made everyone on the lab look up. "I think it's time you do that."
Stim looked at him carefully. Eyes darting between the two of them, A.J. seemed to be waiting for something, grinning a little.
Stim shrugged. "Lise isn't your sister, Nash," he said. "They're not all your sisters. — Megan Abbott

While the light remains,' said Carde, speaking slowly in his high deliberate voice, 'only do not forsake the joy of life. If you shall have given all your kisses, you will give too few. And as leaves fall from withered wreaths which you may see spread upon the cups and floating there, so for us, who now as lovers hope for so much, perhaps tomorrow's day will close the doom. — Iris Murdoch