Quotes & Sayings About Saying So Long

All I wanted was to say honestly to people: 'Have a look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives are!' The important thing is that people should realize that, for when they do, they will most certainly create another and better life for themselves. I will not live to see it, but I know that it will be quite different, quite unlike our present life. And so long as this different life does not exist, I shall go on saying to people again and again: 'Please, understand that your life is bad and dreary!' — Anton Chekhov

My books happen. They tend to blast in from nowhere, seize me by the throat, and howl 'Write me! Write me now!' But they rarely stand still long enough for me to see what and who they are, before they hurtle away again. And so I spend a lot of time running after them, like a thrown rider after an escaped horse, saying 'Wait for me! Wait for me!' and waving my notebook in the air. — Robin McKinley

The experience of climbing Kilimanjaro affected me so powerfully that, for a long time afterward, if I caught myself saying, "I'm not a person who likes to do that activity, eat that food, listen to that music," I would automatically go out and do what I imagined I didn't like. Generally I found I was wrong about myself - I liked what I thought I wouldn't like. And even if I didn't like the particular experience, I learned I liked having new experiences. — Michael Crichton

Just think of Emily Bronte, for example: psychotically bookish - but was there ever a woman screaming out so loudly for a good f***ing? I even suspect that's why Wuthering Heights carries on decades too long rather than sensibly drawing the curtains a little after Cathy's death. It was Bronte saying, 'Look - I'm simply going to keep on writing this stuff until someone comes and shags me raw. — Mil Millington

The reason why she had chosen journalism was because of those who had done so before her. Stalwart women and men who reported stories in the days before the Internet. Before it was fashionable to learn Mass Communication. A long time before being a TV reporter and calling up your family to see your face beamed to their homes was an in thing. They were those who had left their families behind as they pursued the truth, opting to go to jail when the government hounded them to reveal their sources. Men and women that would rather quit than write editorials the management wanted them to write. Journalists who never wrote a word they would have to disown. Journalists who took their last breath as they wrote an article was true to what they believed in. They would never sit down and take stock of the stories they had covered and written saying, So what if twenty of these are non-stories, I at least had five I believed in. — Shweta Ganesh Kumar

I might as well clinch my reputation as a world-class nutcase by saying something good about Karl Marx, commonly believed in this country, and surely in Indian-no-place, to have been one of the most evil people who ever lived. He did invent Communism, which we have long been taught to hate, because we are so in love with Capitalism, which is what we call the casinos on Wall Street. — Kurt Vonnegut

Is that suppose to console me?
Yes.
So now you also want to rob me of the days I was happy.
I'm just saying: You never had as much as you imagine you're losing now.
Do you think I'd feel better if I saw things that way?
That's what I'm hoping for.
So then I'd just put on my apron again and remind myself how much a herring weighs compared to three apples.
At least with herring and apples you know where you stand.
It's obviously been a long time since you loved someone. — Jenny Erpenbeck

Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.
"You're saying it wrong," Harry heard Hermione snap. "It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."
"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled. — J.K. Rowling

Once I had an opportunity to talk with Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, about the fact that I was not able to do my practice properly. I had just started the vajrayana practices and I was supposed to be visualizing. I couldn't visualize anything. I tried and tried but there was just nothing at all; I felt like a fraud doing the practice because it didn't feel natural to me. ( ... ). So he encouraged me by saying that as long as you have these kinds of doubts, your practice will be good. — Pema Chodron

Got nothing out of it. They either knew the lessons and were already living them, or, more commonly, they thought they already knew everything and didn't want to learn. They couldn't see why so many others were benefitting from it. "When one of our senior executives, who was having difficulty adapting, said the story was a waste of time, other people kidded him saying they knew which character he was in the story - meaning the one who learned nothing new and did not change." "What's the story?" Angela asked. "It's called, Who Moved My Cheese?" The group laughed. "I think I like it already," Carlos said. "Would you tell us the story? Maybe we can get something from it." "Sure," Michael replied. "I'd be happy to-it doesn't take long." And so he began: — Spencer Johnson

A Vietnamese saying has it that "Only those with long hair are afraid, for no one can pull the hair of those who have none." And so I try as much as possible to acquire only those things that don't extend beyond the limits of my body. — Kim Thuy

If I told you that God speaks to us through our urges so long as these are safe and proper and totally civilized and don't hurt anyone, what would I be saying? If I told you longing is okay as long as it is within the bounds of what our world considers normal, I would be going counter to my whole tradition. My people discovered divine urges, for goodness' sake. Not namby-pamby urges either. It was loincloth-tearing, harlot-marrying, sacrificing, succumbing, and surrendering kinds of urges. Not without bickering and haggling, I'll grant you, but ultimately urges of the worst kind, the kind that demanded everything. — Francisco X Stork

Dear Lord," began Randy, who paused for long enough that Tristan sneaked an eye open to look at him. His saw his mother's cheek twitch with what he thought might be apprehension. "We are so grateful to be gathered here today with our family, and the family of our brother's homosexual boyfriend, and our new little goth friend who has a gay dad, whatever the heck that is all about. We'd like to say we're grateful this year for condoms, lube, and Ellen Degeneres, and for those guys on Queer Eye ... "
Randall Evan Phillips!" his mother shouted. — Z.A. Maxfield

A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began. Within hours, the man's house began to flood, and someone came to his door offering a ride to higher ground. The man declined, saying, 'God will take care of me.' A few hours later, as the waters engulfed the first floor of the man's home, a boat passed by, and the captain offered to take the man to safety. The man declined, saying, 'God will take care of me.' A few hours after that, as the man waited on his roof - his entire home flooded - a helicopter flew by, and the pilot offered transportation to dry land. Again the man declined, telling the pilot that God would care for him. Soon thereafter, the waters overcame the man, and as he stood before God in heaven, he protested his fate: 'You promised that you'd help me so long as I was faithful.' God replied, 'I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. Your death is your own fault.' God helps those who help themselves. — J.D. Vance

The idea of a Supreme Being who creates a world in which one creature is designed to eat another in order to subsist, and then pass a law saying, "Thou shalt not kill," is so monstrously, immeasurably, bottomlessly absurd that I am at a loss to understand how mankind has entertained or given it house room all this long. — Peter De Vries

I want to paint something that no one has ever painted before," he was saying. I almost laughed at that -- doesn't every artist? We are all touched, however lightly, by the finger of god, and long to be gods ourselves, bringing forth new creations, and yet, so very few achieve it. Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Titian. We stumble in their footsteps, and wait at the closed door. — Mary F. Burns

We got us a good sergeant, is what I'm saying.' Maybe nodded, and glanced back at Crump. 'You listening, soldier? Don't mess it up.' The tall, long-faced man with the strangely wide-spaced eyes blinked confusedly. 'They stepped on my cussers,' he said. 'Now I ain't got any more.' 'Can you use that sword on your belt, sapper?' 'What? This? No, why would I want to do that? We're just marching.' Lagging behind, breath coming in harsh gasps, Limp said, 'Crump had a bag of munitions. Stuck his brain in there, too. For, uh, safekeeping. It all went up, throwing Nah'ruk everywhere. He's just an empty skull now, Maybe.' 'So he can't fight? What about using a crossbow?' 'Never seen him try one of those. But fight? Crump fights, don't worry about that.' 'Well, with what, then? That stupid bush knife?' 'He uses his hands, Maybe.' 'Well, that's just great then.' 'We're just marching,' said Crump again, and then he laughed. — Steven Erikson

Once, not too long ago, you were the good brother. You were careful with everyone's feelings. It was fucking ridiculous how polite and thoughtful you were. You've changed man. Cant believe I'm saying this, but I miss that guy. He was someone I always admired. I couldn't be proud of my choices, but I was always so damn proud of yours. — Abbi Glines

He was done talking. Aiden came off the wall so fast the water reacted in a frenzy of bubbling. He - we - were in a frenzy. His arms crushed me to him, his mouth demanding, saying those three little words over and over again without speaking them. Aiden lifted me up, one hand burying deep in my hair, the other pressing into my lower back, fitting us together. He turned and my back was against the edge and he was everywhere all at once, stealing my breath, my heart, my soul. There was no coming up for air, no control or limits. There was no tottering on the edge. We both fell headfirst. In his arms, in the way the water bubbled and moved with our bodies, I may've lost track of time, but I gained a little part of me. I gained a part of him that U would hold close for the rest of my days, no matter how long or short that turned out to be. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

John [the father] kept saying, "You have a penis. That means you're a boy." One day, Shannon noticed that her son had been in the bathroom an awfully long time and pushed the door open. "He had a pair of my best, sharpest sewing scissors poised, ready to cut. Penis in the scissors. I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'This doesn't belong here. So I'm going to cut it off.' I said, 'You can't do that.' He said, 'Why not?' I said, 'Because if you ever want to have girl parts, they need that to make them.' I pulled that one right out of my ass. He handed me the scissors and said, 'Okay. — Andrew Solomon

As I've often said, this is the biggest problem we have in our society - unwanted kids. If we solve this problem we solve all the other problems. So we have to start judging. As I said before, we judge smokers more harshly than we judge deadbeat dads in our current society. Seriously, how many antismoking PSAs have you seen this week vs. ones saying raise your kids, or don't have kids if you can't afford them? And what's hurting our society more? People need to see that asshole and call him an asshole so maybe other people thinking about being assholes wouldn't become assholes. We stopped judging people a long time ago because the idiots on the left told us everyone is the same and that we couldn't do that. We need to bring back judging. — Adam Carolla

was thinking - um, maybe you should let me do the talking." He glanced over at her. "What are you saying? That I'm scary?" "You're the scariest person I've ever met." "Thank you," he said with a wicked smile. "That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time." "No, really. You're scarier than Frankenstein." He chuckled. "You're so scary that a great white shark would put on tennis shoes and run up the beach to get away from you." His chuckle turned into a laugh. "I mean it," she said, getting into the spirit of it. "If the boogey man was in your closet, he'd stay there until you left for work." "Okay, okay," he said, holding up one hand while trying to stop laughing. "I got it. When we find the girl, you can do the talking." She nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea. — Arthur Bradley

In those years before mobile phones, email and Skype, travelers depended on the rudimentary communications system known as the postcard. Other methods
the long-distance phone call, the telegram
were marked "For Emergency Use Only." So my parents waved me off into the unknown, and their news bulletins about me would have been restricted to "Yes, he's arrived safely,"and "Last time we heard he was in Oregon," and "We expect him back in a few weeks." I'm not saying this was necessarily better, let alone more character-forming; just that in my case it probably helped not to have my parents a button's touch away, spilling out anxieties and long-range weather forecasts, warning me against floods, epidemics and psychos who preyed on backpackers. — Julian Barnes

A broken heart is what makes life so wonderful five years later, when you see the guy in an elevator and he is fat and smoking a cigar and saying long-time-no-see. — Phyllis Battelle

Neil Kinnock's speeches go on for so long because he has nothing to say and so he has no way of knowing when he's finished saying it. — John Major

Die - you will have to die. But die gracefully. I am not saying die like a stoic, I am not saying die like a very controlled man. No, I'm saying die gracefully, beautifully, as if a friend is coming, knocks at your door, and you are happy. And you embrace the friend and invite him in, and you have been waiting for him so long ... — Rajneesh

I think, when you are writing non-fiction, you feel there's an obligation to get it absolutely right, so all your factual details have to be, have, you know, to go through a long list of them and tick them. I'm not saying that's not important in fiction, but I think you have a bit more leeway; you can suit yourself. — Ronald Frame

He froze. "I . . ." Then, as he searched my face with wonder, he slid from his seat and down to one knee. "My sweet, lovely Anna. I love you . . . and I want to marry you. But only if you want to. Do you? I mean, will you? Marry me?"
Be still my heart. His proposal was so adorably awkward that I had to laugh, sliding out of my chair so I could face him on my knees, too. I grabbed his face and kissed him for saying exactly what I needed to hear. We kissed once, twice, three times before he pulled back.
"Does it always take this long for someone to answer? It's making me bloody nervous."
I looked into his eyes. "Yes, Kai. I'll marry you. — Wendy Higgins

Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she would say to him, but she did not succeed in saying anything of it; his passion mastered her. She tried to calm him, to calm herself, but it was too late. His feeling infected her. Her lips trembled so that for a long while she could say nothing. — Leo Tolstoy

Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?
I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.
It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. — Chaim Potok

Then it's goodbye, Sangsara for me
Besides, girls aren't as good as they look
And Samadhi is better than you think
When it starts in hitting your head
In with Buzz of glittergold
Heaven's Angels, wailing, saying
We've been waiting for you since morning, Jack
Why were you so long dallying in the sooty room?
This transcendental Brilliance
Is the better part (of Nothingness
I sing) Okay. Quit. Mad. Stop. — Jack Kerouac

A little maybe; I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said, 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard.' ~ Westley — William Goldman

One of the nice things about our marriage, at least to my way of thinking, is that my wife and I no longer have to argue every thing through. We each know what the other will say, and so the saying becomes an unnecessary formality. No doubt some marriage counselor would explain to us that our problem is a failure to communicate, but to my way of thinking we've worked long and hard to achieve this silence, Lily's and mine, so fraught with mutual understanding. — Richard Russo

"I've ... " he began.
He could have completed that any number of ways: " ... botched everything." " ... loved you since I laid eyes on you." " ... been a complete idiot for you." " ... never deserved you." " ... been so wrong about everything that matters in life."
"I love you." He hadn't planned to say it.
She went still.
She kissed her fingers, and laid them on his lips, stopping him from saying anything more.
"Thank you," she said. "Don't follow me. — Julie Anne Long

He didn't say anything, which daunted her for a moment, but then she saw that his eyes were warm. So she said, tentatively:
"You came for me."
"Yes."
"And took care of me when I was ill."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Without moving a muscle, she let his words sink in. Reverberate. Settle in her bones. Was this much happiness even possible? Joy so great one couldn't even smile?
"Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you, Livia. I've loved you for weeks - for months - quite possibly from the moment I met you. But it's taken me far too long to understand that. Understand myself."
"Can you say it one more time?"
"Yes. I'll be saying it every day for the rest of my life, if you'll let me. I love you. — Lisa Berne

We mustn't be traditional in the way we communicate with people - especially with the Establishment. We should surprise people by saying new things in an entirely new way. Communication of that sort can have a fantastic power so long as you don't do only what they expect you to do. — Yoko Ono

Your Egnlish is so atrocious I don't feel the need to even respond' seems but a long-winded way of saying, 'Home-schooled dumbass. — George Takei

One day a little old lady came and asked my name, saying she couldn't read my nametag. I told her and reached for the little slip of paper she held, but she put it behind her back. It seemed she wanted to chat before giving it up. Fine with me. We chatted about our matching cardigans (the fact that I dress like a little old lady was not lost on me) and we chatted about how the Portland weather bothered her bones. We talked for a long while about her husband and how much she'd grown to hate him over the years. Then, since I guessed I'd earned her trust, she handed me her slip of paper. It was for a book on exotic poisons. I got her the book and spent the next few weeks scanning the obituaries for every old man that had died. So, yes, folks I may be an accomplice to murder. Don't say there's no excitement at the library. — Nick Pageant

She swallowed it down and willed her heart to settle. This was an important moment. For the first time she could introduce herself how she wanted. She got to define her own self. And no one was going to stop her. "Ella," she said quietly, as if saying out loud what had been only in her head for so long would break it further. — S.T. Lynn

But let me just say that talking dirty is so important in sex. And it's pretty easy. To wit: establish from the very beginning that you like this. And trust me, you want to do it early on. Because if you wait too long to introduce the concept, your Special Lady Friend will be a little thrown and might not take you seriously. Think of it as a hat. If you never, ever wear a hat and one day you try to rock a fedora with a feather, all of your friends will be like, "Dude - why are you wearing a fucking fedora with a fucking feather?" You'll feel insecure and never wear it again. Now imagine that scenario, but in bed with your hardened dick out and it's your girlfriend saying, "Dude - why the fuck are you talking like that?" Not good. — Olivia Munn

She opens the book. Each sheet has one or two antique photographs stuck with corner tabs. The images are neither black and white nor gray, but hold that brownish gold of time and exposure to air.

"This man is your great grandfather. Look at that face, Pedro. It is a mean mean face." He's standing in front of a wood pile, holding an axe. "I think he was only a teenager there, a long time before he met my mother. But look how handsome he was. And how mean."

It's funny the way she smiles when she talks about him. Saying he's mean has a perverse joy for her, as if she can stick her tongue out at him and his hands are tied so he can't slap her for doing it. She's right, though. There's no lingering smile, no potential for mirth in the burlap of his skin. I notice snow on the ground at his feet, but he's wearing a thin, unbuttoned shirt, showing no sign of cold. — Laurie Perez

I promise not to step on you - I only look like a clodhopper," he was saying when Jo reached them. He winked at Ella, who glanced away and blinked, as if surprised that he'd come so close to guessing what she thought.
Jo slid up to the bar behind her sister, planted a stiff arm on the ledge, and raised an eyebrow at him.
He glanced up and saw her.
She expected him to blanche, or bristle, or pretend he'd just forgotten someplace else he had to be. A lot of men did that, when they realized that the girl they thought was alone had brought friends to look out for her.
But instead he only said, "Oh," softly, his smile so wide and earnest that crows'-feet appeared at the edges of his eyes; he smiled as though she was an old friend, as though he had been waiting for Jo a long time and was delighted to see her at last. — Genevieve Valentine

This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this person will be in a car or a store or under a vinyl canopy when it happens. Or online or on the phone. It could be an e-mail re: your knighthood. Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying, You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that. — Miranda July

I live up in the hills, and I don't have any cable, and I have really slow satellite, so that does it - because being on the Internet is okay, but it takes a long time. I have a prediction that at some point, there will be a backlash. Like at the end of the '60s, there was that back-to-the-land movement, and I'm guessing that people will start consciously saying, "I'm not taking the phone with me," or "I'm only checking email x number of times a day," or "I'm not ever gonna self-Google," for example. — George Saunders

I think some of this just feels right. You're in the shower and you come up with a sentence and it's beautiful. You don't know how it's going to fit in the film, but you put it in because it feels right. This is a very long way of saying, so much of it is me feeling like I'm catching ideas rather than coming up with ideas. It's very fluid like that. — Don Hertzfeldt

His thumb caressed her cheek. His eyes held her, warm and strong. "I, Christian James, take you, Violet Mary, to be my wife. To have, to hold. To love, honor, and cherish. To amuse, to pleasure, to make smile and laugh. To dance with, at every opportunity. To respect always, and tease on occasion. To confide in, whenever need be. To treasure, protect, admire - " She couldn't help but give a nervous laugh. "I don't think these words are in the vows." "They're in my vows," he said gravely. "But in the interests of time, I shall to return to form. All that richer-poorer, sickness-health business goes without saying. And I will gladly forsake all others, so long as we both shall live." His hand slid back into her hair, grasping tight. Raw emotion roughened his voice. "I need a lifetime with you. — Tessa Dare

I'm pissed off at my Republican family back in North Carolina, several of whom came to my wedding, but who went right back and are voting for homophobes and acting like it doesn't matter. It does matter and it's time for the queers in this country to start saying so to their families. I think we've all cut them too much slack for far too long. — Armistead Maupin

How anybody can compose a story by word of mouth face to face with a bored-looking secretary with a notebook is more than I can imagine. Yet many authors think nothing of saying, 'Ready, Miss Spelvin? Take dictation. Quote no comma Sir Jasper Murgatroyd comma close quotes comma said no better make it hissed Evangeline comma quote I would not marry you if you were the last person on earth period close quotes Quote well comma I'm not so the point does not arise comma close quotes replied Sir Jasper twirling his moustache cynically period And so the long day wore on period End of chapter.'
If I had to do that sort of thing I should be feeling all the time that the girl was saying to herself as she took it down, 'Well comma this beats me period How comma with homes for the feebleminded touting for custom on every side comma has a man like this succeeded in remaining at large mark of interrogation. — P.G. Wodehouse

What is a flower? A giant sexual organ in its Sunday best. The truth has been known for a long time, yet, over-aged adolescents that we are, we persist in speaking sentimental drives about the delicacy of flowers. We construct idiotic phrases like "So-and-so is in the flower of his youth", which is as absurd as saying "in the vagina of his youth". — Amelie Nothomb

She remembered a tale she had heard from Old Nan, about how sometimes during a long winter men who'd lived beyond their years would announce that they were going hunting. And their daughters would weep and their sons would turn their faces to the fire, she could hear Old Nan saying, but no one would stop them, or ask what game they meant to hunt, with the snows so deep and the cold wind howling. She wondered what the old Braavosi told their sons and daughters, before they set off. — George R R Martin

Ruxs finally calmed after several minutes and looked up at him. "What are you saying, Chris?" Green went down on his knees so he was eye level with him. "I'm saying: Why didn't you talk to me, Mark? How long have you been feeling like this?" "Long enough to drive me crazy." Ruxs laughed humorlessly. Green stared at him. He put his hands on Ruxs cheeks. "Com'ere," he whispered. Ruxs' eyes widened slightly, his voice a hushed murmur, "Are you gay?" Green smirked. "Are you? Just shut up and come here." Ruxs — A.E. Via

I don't see why its taking so long," Maryse was saying to Magnus "is that normal?"
"What's not normal is the discount I'm giving you."Magnus tapped the heel of his boot against the wall. "Normally I charge twice this much — Cassandra Clare

The end of his vicious rant ended in a satisfying squawk as Apollo backhanded him. The other man staggered and fell on his arse. "No, don't hurt him!" Lily cried, and Apollo hated to think she cared for this man. "I won't," he assured her in a level tone. He stared at the sputtering rogue for a moment and made up his mind. "But neither will I ... stand by while he ... abuses you." So saying, he picked up the man and tossed him over his shoulder. "Wait here." The man made a sort of moan and Apollo hoped he wouldn't toss his accounts down his back. He'd bathed and changed into a fairly clean shirt before coming to see Lily. Pivoting, he marched toward the dock, the man still over his shoulder. "Caliban!" He ignored her calls. He didn't really care who this ass was - as long as he was nowhere near Lily or Indio. — Elizabeth Hoyt

I've got one more record. - Have you heard "So Long, Letty"? I suppose you have.'
'Honestly, you don't understand - I haven't heard a thing.'
Nor known, nor smelt, nor tasted he might have added; only hot cheeked girls in hot secret rooms. The young maidens he had known at New Haven in 1914 kissed men saying 'There!' hands at the man's chest to push him away. Now there was this scarcely saved waif of disaster bringing him the essence of a continent ... — F Scott Fitzgerald

The NBA's been around how long? A hundred years? Fifty years? So to change it now, whoever that person is needs his college degree revoked ... Whoever did that needs to be fired. It was terrible, a terrible decision. Awful. I might get fined for saying that, but so what? — Shaquille O'Neal

We have, each of us, a story that is uniquely ours, a narrative arc that we can walk with purpose once we figure out what it is. It's the opposite to living our lives episodically, where each day is only tangentially connected to the next, where we are ourselves the only constants linking yesterday to tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with that, and I don't want to imply that there is by saying how much this shocked me
just that it felt so suddenly, painfully right to think that I have tapped into my Long Tale, that I have set my feet on the path I want to walk the rest of my life, and that it is a path of stories and writing and that no matter how many oceans I cross or how transient I feel in any given place, I am still on my Tale's Road, because having tapped it, having found it, the following is inevitable ... — Amal El-Mohtar

If you aren't ready to say the word, that's fine," he says. "I'll wait as long as you need me to. I just hope you don't mind this interruption tonight." He pushes the microphone away, then looks down to his guitar. Brennan leans into the microphone and looks at me.

"He can't hear what I'm saying right now, so I'll take this opportunity to tell you Ridge is full of shit. He doesn't want to wait anymore. He wants you to say the word more than he wants air. So please, for the sake of all that is holy, say the word tonight."

I laugh as I wipe a tear from my eye. — Colleen Hoover

Jesus loves me! This I know
As He loved so long ago
Taking children on His knee
Saying, Let them come to Me. — Anna Bartlett Warner

They are approaching now a lengthy brick improvisation, a Victorian paraphrase of what once, long ago, resulted in Gothic cathedrals - but which, in its own time, arose not from any need to climb through the fashioning of suitable confusions toward any apical God, but more in a derangement of aim, a doubt as to the God's actual locus (or, in some, as to its very existence), out of a cruel network of sensuous moments that could not be transcended and so bent the intentions of the builders not on any zenith, but back to fright, to simple escape, in whatever direction, from what the industrial smoke, street excrement, windowless warrens, shrugging leather forests of drive belts, flowing and patient shadow states of the rats and flies, were saying about the chances for mercy that year. — Thomas Pynchon

Move along," Hines said. "Last room down."
I spotted a fish tank halfway down the aisle. Dug into my pocket.
"Hi," I whispered. "Distraction in five. Four. Three ... "
I broke off as we neared the tank.
Hi spun. "Yo, warden. When do we eat around here? I'm hypoglycemic, plus I've got a hernia. And rabies simplex D. Basically, I need a ton of pills or my arms will fall off."
"Boy, you're on my last nerve."
As Hines glared at Hiram, I palmed the flash drive and dumped it into the fish tank. The yellow-and-black rectangle tumbled to the bottom.
So long, friend. Let's hope Shelton's email went through.
"It's a cultural thing," Hi was saying. "I think you're being very insensitive."
Hines snorted. "Do you want me to cuff you?"
"Kinda."
"Hi." I nodded. — Kathy Reichs

And I love you." I'll tell her as many times as she wants to hear it. As many times as she lets me say it. And though this may be the last time I hold her like this, the last time I get to bask in her sun, I know I'll never stop saying the words that have rested so deeply in me for so long. "I love you, I love you. I love you. — Laurelin Paige

You cannot achieve success without the risk of failure. And I learned a long time ago, you cannot achieve success, if you fear failure. If you're not afraid to fail, man, you have a chance to succeed. But you're never gonna get there unless you risk it, all the way. I'll risk failure. Sometimes, half the fun is failing. Learning from your mistakes, waking up the next morning, and saying 'Okay. Watch out. Here I come again. A little bit smarter, licking my wounds, and really not looking forward to getting my ass kicked the way I just did yesterday.' So now, I'm just a little more dangerous. — Paul Heyman

Immediately after his re-election [Cameron] announced: "For too long we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens so long as you obey the law we will leave you alone." A statement so far to the right that it conceded the political centre ground to Judge Dredd. — Frankie Boyle

Don't try to be young. Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won't live long enough to find out about, but I'm still curious about them. You know people who are already saying, 'I'm going to be 30 - oh, what am I going to do?' Well, use that decade! Use them all! — Betty White

I made the decision that I was going to make rap music in, like, fourth grade, so it's been something I was saying for a long time. — Chance The Rapper

Most of the time it's the role. Sometimes it's the story and sometimes it just the paycheck. It's the little movies that come out as stories or the fact that I have work to go out, you know what I'm saying, you can only be out so long without work, you start getting antsy. — Morgan Freeman

So the criminals win, that's what you're saying? For now they do. But it's a long game, Jamison. And I always play for the long game. — David Baldacci

Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying "yes" begins things. Saying "yes" is how things grow. Saying "yes" leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say "yes'. — Stephen Colbert

She watched his throat move, and then, he reached out and touched her face. "You sure are pretty," he said. "It's the stone," she replied immediately. Her skin felt warm; his fingertip touched just the very edge of her mouth. "It's flattering." Adam gently pulled the stone out of her hand and a set it on the floorboards between them. Through his ingers he threaded one of the flyaway hairs by her cheek. "My mother used to say, 'Don't throw compliments away, so long as they're free." HIs face was very earnest. "That one wasn't mean tho cost you anything, Blue." Blue plucked at the hem on her dress, but she didn't look away from him. "I don't know what to say when you say things like that." "You can tell me if you want me to keep saying them." She was torn by the desire to encourage him and the fear of where it would lead. "I like when you say things like that." Adam asked, "But what?" "I didn't say but." "You meant to. I heard it. — Maggie Stiefvater

I do take pride in saying that in spite of being in public life for so long, there is not a single case against me, not even for wrongly parking a scooter or driving on the wrong side. — Narendra Modi

Everyone has got their own ideas and they push them and say to hell with everyone else. That's the history of the human race. It got us on top, only now it is pushing us off. The thing is that people will put up with any kind of discomfort, and dying babies, and old age at thirty as long as it has always been that way. Try to get them to change and they fight you, even while they're dying, saying it was good enough for grandpa so it's good enough for me. Bango, dead. — Harry Harrison

A new, sad and cheerless feeling constricted his heart; he suddenly realized that at that moment, and for a long time now, he had not been saying what he should have been saying, nor doing what he should have been doing, and that these cards he held in his hands, and had been so pleased about, could be of no help now. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Alderic, Knight of the Order of the City and the Assault, hereditary Guardian of the King's Peace of Mind, a man not unremembered among the makers of myth, pondered so long upon the Gibbelins' hoard that by now he deemed it his. Alas that I should say of so perilous a venture, undertaken at dead of night by a valorous man, that its motive was sheer avarice! Yet upon avarice only the Gibbelins relied to keep their larders full, and once in every hundred years sent spies into the cities of men to see how avarice did, and always the spies returned again to the tower saying that all was well.
It may be thought that, as the years went on and men came by fearful ends on that tower's wall, fewer and fewer would come to the Gibbelins' table: but the Gibbelins found otherwise.
("The Hoard Of The Gibbelins") — Lord Dunsany

Indeed, I believe that in our own day, after all the efforts of critical exegesis, we can share anew this sense of astonishment at the fact that a saying from the year 733 B.C., incomprehensible for so long, came true at the moment of the conception of Jesus Christ - that God did indeed give us a great sign intended for the whole world. — Pope Benedict XVI

There is a saying of my adoptive ancestors. Though he performs a miracle, or two miracles, if he refuses the third miracle, it is not as profit to him. I shall dine at the Court of France tonight, and in the course of that evening, acquire the royal consent for O'LiamRoe and myself to stay as long as we please. For, to be perfectly frank," said Lymond, gently reflective, "to be perfectly frank, I can't wait to sink my teeth into the most magnificent, the most scholarly and the most dissolute Court in Europe, which so lightly slid out The O'LiamRoe, Chief of the Name, on his kneecaps and whiskers. — Dorothy Dunnett

I look at Kitty, who's braiding Chris's hair in microbraids. She's being extra quiet so we forget she's here and don't kick her out. 'I think that as long as you're ready and it's what you want to do and you're protecting yourself, then it's okay and you should do what you want to do.'
Margot says, 'Society is far too caught up in shaming a woman for enjoying sex and applauding a man. I mean, all of the comments are about how Lara Jean is a slut, but nobody's saying anything about Peter, and he's right there with her. It's a ridiculous double standard. — Jenny Han

It is best if we do not listen to or look at the person whom we consider to be the cause of our anger. Like a fireman, we have to pour water on the blaze first and not waste time looking for the one who set the house on fire. "Breathing in, I know that I am angry. Breathing out, I know that I must put all my energy into caring for my anger." So we avoid thinking about the other person, and we refrain from doing or saying anything as long as our anger persists. If we put all our mind into observing our anger, we will avoid doing any damage that we may regret later. — Nhat Hanh

If I waited long enough and said, "Okay, so what you're saying is you liked your life a lot better when you were 30?" everybody would get real quiet and then admit that that wasn't the case, that they really felt like they were sort of growing into themselves in a way. — Anna Quindlen

I was a businessman. I was a real estate man and a businessman. That was the first time I think that question was ever even asked of me. That was long before the war took place. Joe Scarborough just released something yesterday more on point, much nearer. He put out a tweet saying that you know, "Trump is right, look what he just said." So you have to take a look at that. But regardless. The war in Iraq was a disaster. It was probably the worst thing. If you look at the Middle East now, all started because of that horrible decision to go into Iraq. — Donald Trump

Them smile. One read: Having Cheese Makes You Happy. Sometimes Hem and Haw would take their friends by to see their pile of Cheese at Cheese Station C, and point to it with pride, saying, "Pretty nice Cheese, huh?" Sometimes they shared it with their friends and sometimes they didn't. "We deserve this Cheese," Hem said. "We certainly had to work long and hard enough to find it." He picked up a nice fresh piece and ate it. Afterward, Hem fell asleep, as he often did. Every night the Littlepeople would waddle home, full of Cheese, and every morning they would confidently return for more. This went on for quite some time. After a while Hem's and Haw's confidence grew into the arrogance of success. Soon they became so comfortable they didn't even notice what was happening. As — Spencer Johnson

I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. — Chaim Potok

The same uneven application of values applies in the weird worlds of academia and the think tanks. Like the media, they choose to close off their minds the moment that the question of Islam comes along. Most bizarre is that you can get away with saying anything, absolutely anything, so long as it is flattering of Islam. It doesn't matter how soppy, how sentimental, how completely unacademic it is: so long as it's about Islam, different standards apply. — Douglas Murray

The plain message conveyed by the new administration is that George W Bush's America is a Christian nation, and that non-Christians are welcome into the tent so long as they agree to accept their status as a tolerated minority rather than as fully equal citizens. In effect, Bush is saying: "This is our home, and in our home we pray to Jesus as our savior. If you want to be a guest in our home, you must accept the way we pray." — Alan Dershowitz

O how all things are far removed
and long have passed away.
I do believe the star,
whose light my face reflects,
is dead and has been so
for many thousand years.
I had a vision of a passing boat
and heard some voices saying disquieting things.
I heard a clock strike in some distant house ...
but in which house? ...
I long to quiet my anxious heart
and stand beneath the sky's immensity.
I long to pray ...
And one of all the stars
must still exist.
I do believe that I would know
which one alone
endured,
and which like a white city stands
at the ray's end shining in the heavens. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing is a futile attempt to preserve what disappears moment by moment. All that remains of my mother is what I remember and what I have written for and about her. Eventually that is all that will remain of [my husband] and me. Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life's work, Remember. Remember us. Remember me. — Marge Piercy

The reporters who came to the press conference in the
office of the John Galt Line were young men who had
been trained to think that their job consisted of
concealing from the world the nature of its events.
It was their daily duty to serve as audience for some
public figure who made utterances about the public good,
in phrases carefully chosen to convey no meaning.
It was their daily job to sling words together in any
combination they pleased, so long as the words did not
fall into a sequence saying something specific.
They could not understand the interview now being
given to them. — Ayn Rand

Mamaw often told a parable: A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began. Within hours, the man's house began to flood, and someone came to his door offering a ride to higher ground. The man declined, saying, "God will take care of me." A few hours later, as the waters engulfed the first floor of the man's home, a boat passed by, and the captain offered to take the man to safety. The man declined, saying, "God will take care of me." A few hours after that, as the man waited on his roof - his entire home flooded - a helicopter flew by, and the pilot offered transportation to dry land. Again the man declined, telling the pilot that God would care for him. Soon thereafter, the waters overcame the man, and as he stood before God in heaven, he protested his fate: "You promised that you'd help me so long as I was faithful." God replied, "I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. Your death is your own fault. — J.D. Vance

He sighs. "If it's any consolation, I'm not overly thrilled about being away from my wife for so long, either."
"She a cougar?" Cora asks.
Karl stares at her, mouth open.
"I'm just saying," she says defensively. "He looks like the sort to snag a cougar."
She did not just say that. "Cora!"
"My wife is off limits to you." He shakes a finger at her. And then, after a moment, "She's not a cougar."
Cora cackles brightly. — Heather Lyons

You're not alone anymore. You have me.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I had been alone for so long with my questions and theories and anger
and now this beautiful, fantastic girl was saying she believed me.
When she closed her eyes and kissed me, I finally let go of myself. Everything I had held in before, didn't have to be hidden anymore
not from Cassie. My eyes drifted shut as she kissed me harder, her arm winding around my shoulders to pull me close.
Without having to say anything more, I just knew now
maybe I always had
Cassie was the answer. — Melanie Cusick-Jones

What we're going to do is redouble our efforts on financial regulatory reform, because that has in it sensible things like say on pay, so at least the shareholders are minding the store, sensible things like saying, for heaven's sakes, compensation should be focused on - on long term, so that you don't have rewards for short-term risk-taking. — Christina Romer

The first thing that went wrong, according to Fat, had to do with the radio. Listening to it one night- he had not been able to sleep for a long time- he heard the radio saying hideous words, sentences which it could not be saying. Beth, being asleep, missed that. So that could have been Fat's mind breaking down; by then his psyche was disintegrating at a terrible velocity.
Mental illness is not funny. — Philip K. Dick

When you want something so bad, when you deny yourself it, day after day, for so long, after a while, you ask yourself why you're even doing it. You hope it will fade and die; you hope your secrets won't be revealed, because it wouldn't just kill you if they were, but it would kill other people as well. So you forsake yourself for the greater good, but sometimes, most times, it's too much of a burden, Sara. Do you know what I'm saying? — Lindy Zart

("I knew it," Conor grumbled. "These kinds of stories always have stupid princes falling in love." He started walking back to the house. "I thought this was going to be good.")
(With one swift movement, the monster grabbed Conor's ankles in a long, strong hand and flipped him upside down, holding him in mid-air so his T-shirt rucked up and his heartbeat thudded in his head.)
(As I was saying, said the monster.) — Patrick Ness

Procrastination is not the problem. It is the solution. It is the universe's way of saying stop, slow down, you move too fast. Listen to the music. Whoa whoa, listen to the music. Because music makes the people come together, it makes the bourgeois and the rebel. So come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody try to love one another. Because what the world needs now is love, sweet love. And I know that love is a battlefield, but boogie on reggae woman because you're gonna make it after all. So celebrate good times, come on. I've gotta stop I've gotta come to my senses, I've been out riding fences for so long ... oops I did it again ... um ... What I'm trying to say is, if you leave tonight and you don't remember anything else that I've said, leave here and remember this: Procrastinate now, don't put it off. — Ellen DeGeneres

He was not quite sure how to phrase it, so he finally went with,
haltingly, "I don't enjoy being at the center of attention."
Her head tilted to the side, she regarded him for a long moment
before saying, "No. You don't." And then: "You were always a
tree."
"I beg your pardon?"
Her eyes grew sentimental. "When we performed our awful
pantomimes as children. You were always a tree."
"I never had to say anything."
"And you always got to stand at the back."
He felt himself smile, lopsided and true. "I rather liked being a
tree."
"You were a very good tree." She smiled then, too - a radiant,
wondrous thing. "The world needs more trees. — Julia Quinn

They live ill who are always beginning to live. 10. You are right in asking why; the saying certainly stands in need of a commentary. It is because the life of such persons is always incomplete. But a man cannot stand prepared for the approach of death if he has just begun to live. We must make it our aim already to have lived long enough. No one deems that he has done so, if he is just on the point of planning his life. 11. You need not think that there are few of this kind; practically everyone is of such a stamp. Some men, indeed, only begin to live when it is time for them to leave off living. And if this seems surprising to you, I shall add that which will surprise you still more: Some men have left off living before they have begun. Farewell. — Seneca.

In life, you gotta do something. And the medical journals keep on saying if you've got a goal or some passion in life, you'll outlive all the other guys who - the bank manager that retired. They gave him a rocking chair and he rocked himself to death. So you gotta have a passion, whatever it happens to be. Whether it's this or something else, it doesn't matter, as long as it's a reason to get out of bed every morning, as my accountant of 50 years keeps on saying. — James Wright

I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard. — William Goldman

THIS TORTURE
Why should we tell you our love stories
when you spill them together like blood in the dirt?
Love is a pearl lost on the ocean floor,
or a fire we can't see,
but how does saying that
push us through the top of the head into
the light above the head?
Love is not
an iron pot, so this boiling energy
won't help.
Soul, heart, self.
Beyond and within those
is one saying,
How long before I'm free of this torture! — Rumi

In Shoshone, there's a saying. It's a long one, and it doesn't have an English equivalent, so bear with me.
Sutummu tukummuinna. It means, I don't speak your language, and you don't speak mine. But I still understand you. I don't need to walk in your footsteps if I can see the footprints you left behind. — Rose Christo