Set It Off Quotes & Sayings

I'd always assumed Beth and I would be friends forever. But then in middle of the eighth grade, the Goldbergs went through the World's Nastiest Divorce.
Beth went a little nuts.
I don't blame her. When her dad got involved with this twenty-one year old dental hygienist, Beth got involved with the junk food aisle at the grocery store. She carried processed snack cakes the way toddlers carry teddy bears. She gained, like, twenty pounds, but I didn't think it was a big deal. I figured she'd get back to her usual weight once the shock wore off.
Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person who noticed.
May 14 was 'Fun and Fit Day at Surry Middle School, so the gym was full of booths set up by local health clubs and doctors and dentists and sports leagues, all trying to entice us to not end up as couch potatoes. That part was fine. What wasn't fine was when the whole school sat down to watch the eighth-grade cheerleaders' program on physical fitness. — Katie Alender

You were lucky about that gun. All the people we know have been playing with it, wiping prints off and putting them on. I even put a set on myself just to be fashionable. — Raymond Chandler

Ordering and taking delivery on the supplies and other things they needed took ingenuity and finesse, but both were Win's specialty. Contraband that would set off an alarm if ordered from unauthorized sources would simply be "misdelivered" to the SD where he would pick it up after-hours. — Marcha A. Fox

There is a real connection between culture and climate change. We all have a part to play and if you engage with life, you will get a new set of values, get off the consumer treadmill, and start to think, and it is these great thinkers who will rescue the planet. — Vivienne Westwood

The anxiety was like poison ivy. It took nothing to set off that mental itch-a chance remark, remembering an event from the day before-but once it started I found it impossible to stop the cycle. My thoughts twisted in a circle, my pulse hammered, I couldn't concentrate. — Tracy Thompson

Naive enough to set off in pursuit of Truth, I had explored - to no avail - any number of disciplines. I was beginning to be confirmed in my skepticism when the notion occurred to me of consulting, as a last result, Poetry: who knows? perhaps it would be profitable, perhaps it conceals beneath its arbitrary appearances some definitive revelation ... Illusory recourse! Poetry had outstripped be in negation and cost me even my uncertainties ... — Emil Cioran

Peabody wandered off, scanning the entertainment units lining the wall, wondering what it would be like to be able to afford any amusement available: music, art, video, holograms, VR, meditation chambers, games. Play a set of tennis with the latest Wimbeldon champ, dance with a hologram of Fred Astaire, — J.D. Robb

I want to tell Carter and Begin that when the Arabs set off their volcano there will be only Arabs in this part of the world ... Our people will continue to fuel the torch of the revolution with rivers of blood until the whole of the occupied homeland is liberated, the whole of the homeland is liberated, not just a part of it. — Yasser Arafat

Drifting off to sleep, I imagined a spark from the comet floating down, down like a mote of stardust, to land inside my father, where, settling in his belly, it rekindled the long-forgotten dreams and ambitions of his youth. I saw his white shirt glowing yellow in the moonlight, flames shooting from his fingertips, like he was a man set on fire. — George Bishop

The more of myself I transferred into words, the more obvious it became that words were powerless to express anything. Or, rather, it's like this - words can create something of their own, but you can't become words. Words are cheats. They promise to carry you off on the voyage into eternity, and then they set out in secret under full sail, stranding you on the shoreline.

But the most important point is that reality doesn't fit into any words. Reality strikes you dumb. Everything important that happens in life is beyond words. There comes a point when you understand that if what you have experienced can be expressed in words, it means you haven't experienced anything. — Mikhail Shishkin

It's them!" screamed Hermione.
Tonks landed in a long skid that sent earth and pebbles everywhere.
"Remus!" Tonks cried as she staggered off the broom into Lupin's arms. His face was set and white: He seemed unable to speak. Ron tripped dazedly toward Harry and Hermione.
"You're okay," he mumbled, before Hermione flew at him and hugged him tightly.
"I thought--I thought--"
"'M all right," said Ron, patting her on the back. "'M fine."
"Ron was great," said Tonks warmly, relinquishing her hold on Lupin. "Wonderful. Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head, and when you're aiming at a moving target from a flying broom--"
"You did?" said Hermione, gazing up at Ron with her arms still around his neck.
"Always the tone of surprise," he said a little grumpily, breaking free. — J.K. Rowling

The Armadillo A big fiesta was announced on Lake Titicaca, and the armadillo, who was a very superior creature, wanted to dazzle everybody. Long beforehand, he set to weaving a cloak of such elegance that it would knock all eyes out. The fox noticed him at work. "Are you in a bad mood?" "Don't distract me. I'm busy." "What's that for?" The armadillo explained. "Ah," said the fox, savoring the words, "for the fiesta tonight?" "What do you mean, tonight?" The armadillo's heart sank. He had never been more sure of his time calculations. "And me with my cloak only half finished!" While the fox took off with a smothered laugh, the armadillo finished the cloak in a hurry. As time was flying, he had to use coarser threads, and the weave ended up too big. For this reason the armadillo's shell is tight-warped around the neck and very open at the back. (174) — Eduardo Galeano

Being a successful couple was learning what you were willing to compromise on, and what you weren't; learning when to stand your ground, and when to give it up; what was truly important enough to fight over, and what was just you being pissy. You learned each other's hot buttons, the places that hurt, or angered, when you pressed them. Love makes you learn where all the pitfalls are, and how to avoid them, or how to set them off. — Laurell K. Hamilton

The moral of the story, Son," Pun would say, "is Don't take more on your heart than you can shake off on your heels."
Of all lessons, that one I never learned and I hope I never do. My heart daily grows new foliage, always adding people, picking up new heartaches like a wool coat collects cockleburs and beggar's-lice seeds. It gets fuller and fuller as I walk slow as a sloth, carrying all the pain Pun and Frank and so many others tried to walk from. Especially the pain of the lost forest. Sometimes there is no leaving, no looking westward for another promised land. We have to nail our shoes to the kitchen floor and unload the burden of our heart. We have to set to the task of repairing the damage done by and to us. — Janisse Ray

Why are so many of us enspelled by myths and folk stories in this modern age? Why do we continue to tell the same old tales, over and over again? I think it's because these stories are not just fantasy. They're about real life. We've all encountered wicked wolves, found fairy godmothers, and faced trial by fire. We've all set off into unknown woods at one point in life or another. We've all had to learn to tell friend from foe and to be kind to crones by the side of the road ... — Terri Windling

I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is *good* sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader's mind so that the mind, like the author's, begins to create. Thus sf is creative and it
inspires creativity, which mainstream fiction by-and-large does not do. We who read sf (I am speaking as a reader now, not a writer) read it because we love to experience this chain-reaction of ideas being set off in our minds by something we read, something with a new idea in it; hence the very best since fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create and enjoy doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness. — Philip K. Dick

C. Every morning after that, the mice and the Littlepeople dressed in their running gear and headed over to Cheese Station C. It wasn't long before they each established their own routine. Sniff and Scurry continued to wake early every day and race through the Maze, always following the same route. When they arrived at their destination, the mice took off their running shoes, tied them together and hung them around their necks-so they could get to them quickly whenever they needed them again. Then they enjoyed the cheese. In the beginning Hem and Haw also raced toward Cheese Station C every morning to enjoy the tasty new morsels that awaited them. But after a while, a different routine set in for the Littlepeople. Hem and Haw awoke each day a little later, dressed a little slower, and walked to Cheese Station C. After all, they knew where the Cheese was — Spencer Johnson

The universe whispered it's him, but I sent you away ~ I tested our connection and left it to fate,
Years have passed and others have come into our lives, but here we are again, meeting another time.
Our timing is off, so we set our connection free once again, trusting the winds of fate and the synchronicity it sends. — Nikki Rowe

And I've said this all across the country when I talk to parents about education, government has to fulfill its obligations to fund education, but parents have to do their job too. We've got to turn off the TV set, we've got to put away the video game, and we have to tell our children that education is not a passive activity, you have to be actively engaged in it. If we encourage that attitude and our community is enforcing it, I have no doubt we can compete with anybody in the world. — Barack Obama

It had a very long pendulum, and the pendulum swung with a slow tick-tock that set his teeth on edge, because it was the the kind of delibrate, annoying ticking that wanted to make it abundantly clear that every tick and every tock was stripping another second off your life. — Terry Pratchett

3And in those days a whirlwind carried me off from the earth, and set me down at the end of the heavens. 4There I saw another vision, the dwelling-places of the holy and the righteous. 5Here my eyes saw their dwellings with His righteous angels and the holy. And they asked, interceded, and prayed for the children of men, and righteousness flowed before them like water, and mercy like dew upon the earth. Thus it is among them forever. — Ken Johnson

Whatever else you set out to do, begin by getting to know God and seeking His will in your life. If you do that, you will find Him. He will lead you. He will bless you. What a wonderful promise! But it is conditional. If you turn your back on the Lord, He will cast you off forever. — James C. Dobson

Here she was at eight, with the chemistry set she'd begged for at Christmas. Her father was beside her in this one, showing her a picture of the periodic table, explaining how everything on earth, everything in the universe, even - people, starfish, cement, bicycles, and far-off planets - was made up of a combination of these elements. "Isn't it amazing to think of, Ruthie?" he'd asked. Ruthie had found the idea that we were only a series of neatly constructed puzzle pieces or building blocks vaguely unsettling - even at eight, she wanted there to be more to it than that. — Jennifer McMahon

Sat in the Jacuzzi last night looking at the dark recesses of the nozzles. Remembering the story I wrote about spiders nesting there. Multifaceted eyes watching me watching them, almost like when you set two mirrors parallel to each other, accept this infinity ends up in some fuzzy creature's belly. I have a nice picture of a Hobo spider in my backyard, venom dripping off one of those nasty fangs of theirs. Son of a bitch is looking at me and his mouth is watering waiting for me to stick my hand under the rock he's nested in. I hate it when you spray a spider with insecticide and it curls up for a few minutes, then uncurls and staggers home. I'm like an arachnid cheap date that sucks!!
I just picture the spider staggering into the nest and the female spider asking, "Is that Raid I smell on you?"
The spider just smiles (interesting thing to picture) and passes out. — Neil Leckman

She had something Adam didn't. Curiosity. First step to growth
and if it wasn't for Eve's Adam would still be sitting by the side of the pool picking his nose and scratching his scalp, bamboozled by his own reflection. Off in her part of Eden, Eve hadn't bothered naming the animals. On the other hand she'd discovered how to milk some of them and how best to eat the eggs of others. She'd decided she wasn't overly keen on torrential rain and had built a shelter from bamboo and banana leaves, into which she'd retire when the heavens opened, having set out coconut shells to catch the rainwater with a view to saving herself the schlep down to the spring every time she wanted a drink. The only thing you won't be surprised to hear about is that she'd already domesticated a cat and called it Misty. — Glen Duncan

I've always at least tried to be self-deprecating when I say anything about myself. As long as you set the bar low, it will keep people from putting you on a pedestal, so they can't knock you off. — Megan Fox

It had the old double keyboard, an entirely different set of keys for capitals and figures, so that the paper seemed a long way off, and the machine was as big and solid as a battle cruiser. Typing was then a muscular activity. You could ache after it. If you were not familiar with those vast keyboards, your hand wandered over them like a child lost in a wood. The noise might have been that of a shipyard on the Clyde. You would no more have thought of carrying one of those grim structures as you would have thought of travelling with a piano. — J.B. Priestley

The anti-feminism bacllash has been set off not by women's achievement of full equality but by the increased possibility that they might win it. It is a pre-emptive strike that stops women long before they reach the finishing line. — Susan Faludi

I think about cutting my hair. How nice it would be to wash it, run a quick comb through it, and presto! all set, ready to rock and roll. I sigh. Henry loves my hair almost as though it were a creature unto itself, as though it has a soul to call its own, as though it could love him back. I know he loves it as a part of me, but I also know he would be deeply upset if I cut it off. And I would miss it, too ... it's just so much effort, sometimes I want to take it off like a wig and set it aside while I go out and play. — Audrey Niffenegger

This, I now know, is how people go crazy and do things they regret. Look at the woman who almost killed Al Green.I am sure she cooked those grits, fully intending to eat them for breakfast. Then he did something that set her off. After that, she probably picked up the pot, just to scare him a little bit. Next thing she knew and the boiling grits were all over his face. There was a name for that kind of thing. "Crime of passion." It meant that it wasn't your fault. — Tayari Jones

I notice how it takes a lazy man, a man that hates moving, to get set on moving once he does get started off, the same as when he was set on staying still, like it aint the moving he hates so much as the starting and the stopping. And like he would be kind of proud of whatever come up to make the moving or the setting still look hard. He set there on the wagon hunched up, blinking, listening to us tell about how quick the bridge went and how high the water was, and I be durn if he didn't act like he was proud of it, like he had made the river rise himself. — William Faulkner

That the crowning miracle of all the miracles summed up in the New Testament, after the miracle of the blind seeing, and the lame walking, and the restoration of the dead to life, was the miracle that the poor had the Gospel preached to them. That while the poor were unnaturally and unnecessarily cut off by the thousand, in the prematurity of their age, or in the rottenness of their youth - for of flower or blossom such youth has none - the Gospel was NOT preached to them, saving in hollow and unmeaning voices. That of all wrongs, this was the first mighty wrong the Pestilence warned us to set right. And that no Post- Office Order to any amount, given to a Begging-Letter Writer for the quieting of an uneasy breast, would be presentable on the Last Great Day as anything towards it. — Charles Dickens

You ever notice how long it takes for things to happen when you know they're supposed to happen? My fake Walkman has a built-in alarm, and I set it for two in the morning and wear the headphones to bed, but before you can wake up you have to fall asleep, and I never DO fall asleep because I keep waiting for the alarm to go off. — Rodman Philbrick

No man as godly as George, the only fault he finds with God is that he made folk with too few orifices. If George could meet a woman with a quinny under her armpit, he would call out 'Glory be' and set her up in a house and visit her every day, until the novelty wore off. Nothing is forbidden to George, you see. He'd go to it with a terrier bitch if she wagged her tail at him and said bow-wow.'
For once he is struck silent. He knows he will never get it out of his mind, the picture of George in a hairy grapple with a little ratting dog. — Hilary Mantel

I observed that the successful farmer worked at his job. He would do his plowing, disking, harrowing, seeding, and harvesting in the proper season and at the proper time, while his neighbor was procrastinating, or off hunting and fishing while the work was still to be done. We must learn to set our priorities straight. No one can be successful in his line of work unless he works at it in the proper season and plays in the proper season. — Nathan Eldon Tanner

A dependent clause (a sentence fragment set off by commas, dontcha know) helps you explore your story by moving you deeper into the sentence. It allows you to stop and think harder about what you've already written. Often the story you're looking for is inside the sentence. The dependent clause helps you uncover it. — Janet Fitch

What defines greatness is when you hold all the records and what you mean to your fans, on and off the field, because that is who ranks you as the greatest receiver of all-time. The guy that holds all the records, the guy that has set the stage for all of us, you have to give it to Jerry Rice. — Donald Driver

There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione's arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.
"Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. "OI! There's a war going on here!"
Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.
"I know, mate," said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the back of the head with a Bludger, "so it's now or never, isn't it?"
"Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?" Harry shouted. "D'you think you could just
just hold it in, until we've got the diadem?"
"Yeah
right
sorry
" said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face. — J.K. Rowling

I have crazy eyebrows, so it's crucial to tame them. Just like your hair, they set off your features. — Natalie Morales

I-I have to go," she began, then bit her lip as she realized she was stuttering again-a habit she seemed to have developed in the past twenty-four hours.Forgetting her sketch pad, she stepped off the rock and prepared to make an undignified dash for her car. In the next instant she was whirled around.
His face was set, his breathing unsteady. "I was wrong." His voice filled her head, emptying it of everything else. "I have a great deal of trouble resisting you. — Nora Roberts

I'm here to tell you, though, ladies that the term "gold digger" is one of the traps we men set to keep you off our money trail; we created that term for you so that we can have all our money and still get everything we want from you without you asking for or expecting this very basic, instincual responsibility that men all over the world are obligated to assume and embrace ... KNOW THIS: It is your right to expect that a man will pay for your dinner, your movie ticket, your club entry fee, or whatever else he has to pay for in exhange for your time. — Steve Harvey

It was on a van ride home from the movie set that everything came together. I realized I had to get off Twitter. It just struck me that I couldn't stop everyone else from doing it, but I could certainly stop myself. — Nick Offerman

In the information age, the barriers [to entry into programming] just aren't there. The barriers are self imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don't need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers. — John Carmack

Somebody set up us the bomb,' pal," he quoted. "Now it's time to take off every zig for great justice. — Ernest Cline

I was greatly influenced by 'The Goons' and 'Monty Python' reconstituting what comedy was - it could come from a funny word, not just a set up and a pay-off. I liked the zaniness; they were satirical, slightly saucy and very literary in their references. — Sanjeev Bhaskar

Damned bad luck! "Stop that locomotive!" he yelled. His men drew carbines from their saddle packs and let loose a volley at the train. The engineer spun round in agony, two bullets having smashed into his chest, and he collapsed dying on the footplate, but the stoker kept his head down and ensured the train carried on past the station and away to get help. "Hell, bad luck," Stuart muttered. "Okay men, leave the ammunition and clothing in a huge pile and set it on fire! And the alcohol. No drink is to be taken, d'ya hear?" "Yes general," his aide saluted, and trotted away, barking orders. They burned the station and rode off south, knowing now that the Union pursuit would be closing in on them. Ahead was the Chickahominy — Tony Roberts

Do you want to be with Dave for the rest of your life?" Then he rips off a piece of paper and picks up
the smallest charcoal stick from my set. He writes something. He passes it over to me.
It says:
Time will tell.
"And while you're waiting," he says, "don't settle for anything less than what you really want. — Susane Colasanti

They are regular brigands, especially Dolokhov," replied the visitor. "He is a son of Marya Ivanovna Dolokhova, such a worthy woman, but there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere, put it in a carriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The police tried to interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied a policeman and the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka Canal. And there was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his back! — Leo Tolstoy

Nina pulled the pins from her hair, shucked off the blonde wig, and tossed it on the table they'd set in the middle of the tomb. She slumped into a chair, rubbing her fingers along her scalp. "So much better," she said with a happy sigh. But Matthias could not ignore the almost greenish cast to her skin.
She was worse tonight. Either she'd run into trouble with Smeet or she'd simply overexerted herself. And yet, watching her, Matthias felt something in him ease. At least now she looked like Nina again, her brown hair in damp tangles, her eyes half-shut. Was it normal to be fascinated by the way someone slouched? — Leigh Bardugo

Kick had a worry list. She added to it every day. By keeping track of each worry, she could put off worrying in the moment and instead do it all at once during the designated worry period she set aside before dinner. — Chelsea Cain

She snorted. "I doubt it. Waxing hurts."

"I'd kiss it better afterward, babe. I promise. I'll rake my teeth over the smooth skin and lick every inch of your sweet pussy all night long until you're dizzy from coming and beg me to stop. Your folds will be so sensitive the smallest friction will set you off. — Elle Aycart

Keep your whole being on the thing you are turning into words. The minute you flinch, and take your mind off this thing, and begin to look at the words and worry about them... Then your worry goes into them and they set about killing each other. So you keep going as long as you can, then look back and see what you have written. After a bit of practice and after telling yourself you are going to use any old word that comes into your head so long as it seems right, you will surprise yourself. You will read back through what you have written and you will get a shock. You will have captured a spirit, a creature. — Ted Hughes

I do try to keep my show very improvisational. I don't work off a set list; I like to keep it more in the moment. I like to have information about where I'm going, what might be happening in that particular region as well. I like for people to feel like the show is for them. — Dane Cook

I read a page of Plato's great work. I can no longer understand anything, because behind the words on the page, which have their own heavenly brightness, to be sure, there shines an even brighter, an enormous, dazzling -why- that blots out everything, cancels out, destroys all meaning. All individual intelligence. When one has understood, one stops, satisfied with what one has understood. I do not understand. Understanding is far too little. To have understood is to be fixed, immobilized. It is as though one wanted to stop on one step in the middle of a staircase, or with one foot in the void and the other on the endless stair. But a mere why, a new why can set one off again, can unpetrify what was petrified and everything starts flowing afresh. How can one understand? One cannot. — Eugene Ionesco

I had a ritual - and having any ritual sounded so mature that I told everyone about it, even the regulars. On my days off I woke up late and went to the coffee shop and had a cappuccino and read. Then around five p.m., when the light was failing, I would take out a bottle of dry sherry and pour myself a glass, take out a jar of green olives, put on Miles Davis, and read the wine atlas. I didn't know why it felt so luxurious, but one day I realized that ritual was why I had moved to New York - to eat olives and get tipsy and read about Nebbiolo while the sun set. I had created a life that was bent in service to all my personal cravings. — Stephanie Danler

The Republicans finally got some good news over the weekend. The North Koreans set off a nuclear bomb. Thank God. It was so powerful it knocked the Mark Foley story right off the front page. And knocked him off the page he was on, too. — Jay Leno

The pathologized images have moved the soul in several ways: we are afraid; we feel vulnerable and in danger; our very physical sustance and sanity appear to be menaced; we want to prevent or rectify. Especially this last seizes us. We feel protective, impelled to correct, straighten, repair. For we have confused something sick with something wrong. [ ... ]
affliction reaches us partly through the guilt it brings. Guilt belongs to the experiences of deviation, the the sense of being off, failing, 'missing the mark'. [ ... ]
However the true missing of the mark is taking the guilt literally, where failings becomes faults to be set right. This places the guilt on the shoulders of the ego who 'should not' have failed. Then pathologizing reinforces the ego's style and guilt serves a secondary gain, increasing the ego's sense of importance: ego becomes superego, drivenly busy with repairing wrongs. A guilty ego is no less egocentric than a proud one. — James Hillman

If you're trying to be miserable, it's important you don't have any goals. No school goals, personal goals, family goals. Your only objective each day should be to inhale and exhale for sixteen hours before you go to bed again. Don't read anything informative, don't listen to anything useful, don't do anything productive. If you start achieving goals, you might start to feel a sense of excitement, then you might want to set another goal, and then your miserable mornings are through. To maintain your misery, the idea of crossing off your goals should never cross your mind. — John Bytheway

Don't launch it," said Bean into his microphone, head down. "Set it off inside your ship. God be with you. — Orson Scott Card

Beauty has so many charms, one knows not how to speak against it; and when it happens that a graceful figure is the habitation of a virtuous soul, when the beauty of the face speaks out the modesty and humility of the mind, and the justness of the proportion raises our thoughts up to the heart and wisdom of the great Creator, something may be allowed it,
and something to the embellishments which set it off; and yet, when the whole apology is read, it will be found at last that beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest. — Laurence Sterne

Should I be worried?" He set down the bread. I smiled. "No. But go easy on him. He hasn't had to see me with anyone for a while. It's ... strange for him. Hearing the stories and now, seeing you here." "What are the stories?" "Oh, you know. Dark, handsome stranger whisking off innocent, sweet, loved-by-all Riley Johnson. Corrupting her weekends before sending her back a ruined woman." "Oh, is that what they're saying?" His mouth curved. I nodded, widening my eyes. "Oh yes. It's quite the scandal. — Alessandra Torre

Every time you get angry with yourself for where you are in your process of growth, it's the equivalent of chopping off the head of the rose because it hasn't bloomed yet. Now you have to go through that part of the process again. Anger will set you back every time and slow down your growth. However, self-compassion and self-encouragement are like water and sunshine; they help the growth process happen faster and easier. It's up to you how you want to proceed, but if you can break the habit of getting angry with yourself and replace it with some compassion and encouragement, then you will bloom like you have never bloomed before. — Emily Maroutian

As he fills me, I wonder if - in the same way that sex makes its own unique perfume - we don't really "make" love. As in create, manufacture, evoke an independent element in the air around us, and if enough of us did it really well, for real, not just for the hell of it, we could change the world. Because when he's in me, I feel the space around us changing, charging, and it seems to set off some kind of feedback loop, where the more he touches me, the more I need him to. — Karen Marie Moning

I want to say," he said as he placed my right wrist and right knee together, "If you say stop, it's good enough for me, but we might want to set a safeword." He spread my legs to get the right length under my back and tired my right side together, letting the rest of the loop drop off the edge of the bed. "Tangerine," I said. "Tangerine?" "I doubt you can keep doing whatever it is you're doing if I saw tangerine." "Fine, wiseass. — C.D. Reiss

I try not to set myself up as different or as a celebrity or special. I have a husband that can get on my nerves. I have kids that test my patience. I've got a cat I can't keep off the sofa. It's real. On a bad day, I'm reading 'Acts of Faith.' — Iyanla Vanzant

A few words which he wanted to emphasize were put into brackets or set off by quotation marks. My first impulse was to point out to him that it was ridiculous to put slang words and expressions between quotation marks, for that prevents them from entering the language. But I decided not to. When I received his letters, his parentheses made me shudder. At first, it was a shudder of slight shame, disagreeable. Later (and now, when I reread them) the shudder was the same, but I know, by some indefinable, imperceptible change, that it is a shudder of love- it is both poignant and delightful, perhaps because of the memory of the word shame that accompanied it in the beginning. Those parentheses and quotation marks are the flaw on the hip, the beauty mark on the thigh whereby my friend showed that he was himself, irreplaceable, and that he was wounded. — Jean Genet

So the rich kids aren't the alpha group of the school. The next most likely demographic would be the church kids: They're plentiful, and they are definitely interested in school domination. However, that strength
the will to dominate
is also their greatness weakness, because they spend so much time trying to convince you to hang out with them, and the way they try to do that is by inviting you over to their church. 'We've got cookies and board games,' they say, or that sort of thing. 'We just got a Wii set up!' Something about it always seems a little off. Eventually, you realize: These same exact sentences are also said by child predators. — Jesse Andrews

You need to understand something, Krissy," he began, taking careful steps towards me. "Whenever I drop the words 'gonna shower', it means, we're gonna shower. I expect to see you sliding the doors open and stepping in under that shower with me, no more than a minute later. Aroused, eager, and impatient to be fucked under the spraying shower and against the tiles."

When he reached me, he took the cup of coffee still suspended mid-air from my hand and set it down on the table. Then he bent and slid one arm beneath my thighs, the other around my waist, and lifted my inert body up off the chair. "If I don't want you to join me, I won't tell you I'm gonna shower. 'Cause, then, what would be the fucking point? — S. Ann Cole

I, along with our fourteen soldiers, set off into the urban wilderness of Baghdad. We had six humvees, lots of ammunition, over a million dollars worth of equipment, and no idea what the fuck we were going to do with it all. — Brandon Friedman

I want to be a Bond girl. Think about it - I have metal components in my legs, so when I go through airport security, I set off the alarms. But when they realize why I'm beeping, they let me through. What if I had weapons in my legs? I could take one off and pull out an Uzi! Legs Galore - that would be me! — Aimee Mullins

Chernobyl, while an accident in the sense that no one intentionally set it off, was also the deliberate product of a culture of cronyism, laziness, and a deep-seated indifference toward the general population. — Svetlana Alexievich

Tom said, "You should go. You could use a friend." It was not anything I had not thought myself. Still, hearing it aloud made me feel pitiable, and I had no wish to be, and so I...set off for a luncheon I did not much want to attend." p 233 — Cathy Marie Buchanan

As inexplicable as the accidents that set it off, our imagination is a crucial privilege. I've tried my whole life simply to accept the images that present themselves to me without trying to analyze them. I remember when we were shooting That Obscure Object of Desire in Seville and I suddenly found myself telling Fernando Rey, at the end of a scene, to pick up a big sack filled with tools lying on a bench, sling it over his shoulder, and walk away. The action was completely irrational, yet it seemed absolutely right to me. Still, I was worried about it, so I shot two versions of the scene: one with the sack, one without. But during the rushes the following day, the whole crew agreed that the scene was much better with the sack. Why? I can't explain it, and I don't enjoy rummaging around in the cliches of psychoanalysis. — Luis Bunuel

The crime of liberation theology was that it takes the Gospels seriously. That's unacceptable. The Gospels are radical pacifist material, if you take a look at them ... Liberation theology, in Brazil particularly, brought the actual Gospel to peasants. They said, let's read what the Gospels say, and try to act on the principles they describe. That was the major crime that set off the Reagan wars of terror. — Noam Chomsky

They came there regularly every evening drawn by some need. It was as if the water floated off and set sailing thoughts which had grown stagnant on dry land, and gave to their bodies even some sort of physical relief. First, the pulse of colour flooded the bay with blue, and the heart expanded with it and the body swam, only the next instant to be checked and chilled by the prickly blackness on the ruffled waves. Then, up behind the great black rock, almost every evening spurted irregularly, so that one had to watch for it and it was a delight when it came, a fountain of white water; and then while one waited for that, one watched, on the pale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again smoothly, a film of mother-of-pearl. — Virginia Woolf

[W]hen a message is squeezed through a twenty-second news spot, so much can be lost that what is left will fail to move anyone enough to make them turn off the set and actually do something. Meanwhile, the viewers will believe that they have learned everything they need to know on that subject and will be bored the next time they hear it. — Jerry Mander

It is a tricky business to know when you should set goals and objectives in order to achieve a focus, and when you would be better off dealing with the acceptance and management of your current reality so you can later step into new directions and responsibilities with greater stability and clarity. Only you will know the answer to that, and only in the moment. — David Allen

I present Mr. and Mrs. Cole Bridge. You may kiss the bride." Father Callahan gave Cole a nod of approval.
Cole faced Kyle and wrapped her in his arms. He pulled her off her feet and closer to his face. Livia and Blake were the only ones close enough to hear Cole's private vows.
He kissed her once, gently and almost chastely. "For our past."
Cole kissed her again, just a breath of a kiss, lightly touching her lips. "For today."
The last kiss was deeper, but still maintained church decorum. It was the intimacy in his gaze that made the guests feel voyeuristic. "For the rest of our lives," he said softly as he set her back on her feet. — Debra Anastasia

It boils down to studenthood-in-perpetuity / curiosity-in-perpetuity / applied fanatic restlessness. That is, a belief that life is ONE BIG LEARNING EXPERIENCE. Something mysterious happens to a curious, fully engaged mind - and it happens as often as not, subconsciously. Strange little sparks are set off, connections made, insights triggered. The results: an exponentially increased ability to tune up / reinvent / WOW-ize today's project at work. — Tom Peters

The brick is neither here nor there,' interrupted the stranger in an imposing fashion, 'it never merely falls on someone's head from out of nowhere. In your case, I can assure you that a brick poses no threat whatsoever. You will die another kind of death.
'And you know just what that will be?' queried Berlioz with perfectly understandable irony, letting himself be drawn into a truly absurd conversation. 'And can you tell me what that is?'
'Gladly,' replied the stranger. He took Berlioz's measure as if intending to make him a suit and muttered something through his teeth that sounded like 'One, two.. Mercury in the Second House ... the moon has set ... six-misfortune ... evening-seven ... ' Then he announced loudly and joyously, 'Your head will be cut off! — Mikhail Bulgakov

There must be a special, less volcanic portion of hell that was partitioned off and set aside for people who weren't all bad, just a little vindictive. They could call it the drama queen ward. It would be a huge hit. — Darynda Jones

She came before she could stop herself, a small pop of release. Panting, she ripped the goggles off and found Peabody gaping at her.
"It wasn't a walk on a quiet beach," Eve managed.
"I could see that. What was it, exactly?"
"A couple of mostly naked guys and a big satin bed." Eve blew out a breath, set the goggles down. "Who'd have thought she relaxed with sex fantasies?"
"Ah, Lieutenant. Sir. As your aide, I believe it's my responsibility to test that unit. For evidence control."
Eve tucked her tongue in her cheek. "Peabody, I couldn't let you take that kind of risk."
"I'm a cop, sir. Risk is my life. — J.D. Robb

It doesn't seem to make sense in our eyes. To us, certain sins, like murder and adultery, seem "bigger." While "smaller" sins like anger and lust, many times go unnoticed. But, in Jesus' math, every sin, no matter how little or how big it seems in our eyes, will keep us from him. Or in other words, will "set off the alarm" in heaven one day unless we are cleansed by the blood of Jesus. — C.J. Hitz

You occasionally hear it said that spiritual aspirants should drop everything and set off for the woods, or go to India and wander about on the slopes of the Himalayas. But only through daily contact with people--not trees or brooks or deer--can we train ourselves to be selfless in personal relationships. — Eknath Easwaran

Ralph Fiennes was a big hero of mine acting-wise growing up and while I was training. I just find him so watchable. He was playing this very intimidating character when we worked together and it certainly felt like he was in character off set as well! He was very cool. Before a scene, he'd be like, "Come on. Let's improvise. Let's just do stuff." But Jesus Christ. He's Ralph Fiennes! — Jeremy Irvine

A general is a specialist insofar as he has master his craft. Beyond that and outside the arbitrary pro and con, he keeps a third possibility intact and in reserve: his own substance. He knows more than what he embodies and teaches, has other skills along with the ones for which he is paid. He keeps all that to himself; it is his property. It is set aside for his leisure, his soliloquies, his nights. At a propitious moment, he will put it into action, tear off his mask. So far, he has been racing well; within sight is the finish line, his final reserves start pouring in. Fate challenges him; he responds. The dream, even in an erotic encounter, comes true. But causally, even here; every goal is a transition for him. The bow should snap rather than aiming the arrow at a finite target. — Ernst Junger

You don't have to be young. You don't have to be thin. You don't have to be "hot" in a way that some dumbfuckedly narrow mindset has construed that word. You don't have to have taut flesh or a tight ass or an eternally upright set of tits. You have to find a way to inhabit your body while enacting your deepest desires. You have to be brave enough to build the intimacy you deserve. You have to take off all of your clothes and say, "I'm right here." There are so many tiny revolutions in a life, a million ways we have to circle around ourselves to grow and change and be okay. And perhaps the body is our final frontier. It's the one place we can't leave. We're there till it goes. Most women and some men spend their lives trying to alter it, hide it, prettify it, make it what it isn't, or conceal it for what it is. But what if we didn't do that? That's the question you need to answer, — Cheryl Strayed

She smiled, nodded, and kept walking. She waved her badge at the proximity sensor, stepped into the revolving door, and entered the cavernous atrium. Right in the center, surrounded by tropical foliage, was a huge bronze globe, the continents sculpted in sharp relief. On the front of the globe, set at a jaunty angle, was the Gifford Industries logo, which couldn't have been more hokey: retro squared-off streamlined script that must have looked futuristic when it was designed in the 1930s. A couple more people waved at her, flashed sympathetic looks, and she ducked into the express elevator to the twenty-fourth floor. She slid her security card into the slot, and the elevator rose. The lights in the executive suite were already on, which surprised her. She was normally the first one in. She passed her prox badge against the sensor until it beeped, then pushed open the glass doors. When she rounded the corner, she saw someone sitting at her desk. Noreen Purvis. 23. — Joseph Finder

Before I could reply, he had picked me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. And afterwards, when I tried to speak, he silenced me in much the same manner. It was a shock (but not at all distasteful) to be so caught up. Later - when he at last set me down - he handled me more gently. He took of my glasses and told me that he loved me. — Jennifer Paynter

What's really important is storytelling. None of it matters if it doesn't support the story. I thought The Avengers was an appalling film. They'd shoot from some odd angle and I'd think, why is the camera there? Oh, I see, because they spent half a million on the set and they have to show it off. It took me completely out of the movie. I was driven bonkers by that illogical form of storytelling. — Wally Pfister

Once you walk off the set, if you're an actor, the rest isn't your responsibility, which I like a lot. I'm not responsible for the final product, which is why it's always a pleasure when you see it's in the hands of the people afterwards putting it together. — Justin Kirk

He awoke at five, to the whine of the television test pattern, turned off the set, and listened for the wind. It had moderated and seemed to be coming from a different quarter, but it still carried rain. He debated calling Quint, but thought, no, no use: we'll be going even if this blows up into a gale. He went upstairs and quietly dressed. Before he left the bedroom, he looked at Ellen, who had a frown on her sleeping face. "I do love you, you know," he whispered, and he kissed her brow. He started down the stairs and then, impulsively, went and looked in the boys' bedrooms. They were all asleep. — Peter Benchley

Hey, here come our ladies. Just looking at them gives you the uh, doesn't it?" McNab gave the sound a push that was unmistakably sexual as he grinned down the long corridor where Peabody got off the glide with Eve.

Then he shot Roarke a quick look. "I mean the uh me for mine, you for yours. It's not like I get the uh for the lieutenant, for which she would kick my ass, then leave you to turn what was left of it into bloody dust. Which She-Body would then grind into the earth before she set it on fire. I was just saying."

"I know what you were saying." McNab could, invariably, entertain him. "And I couldn't agree more, with everything including the bloody dust. They are compelling women. — J.D. Robb

One way to prevent yourself from going through a considerable amount of useless pain is to see the truth of the following and then to act upon your discovery accordingly: judging others doesn't change how much they disturb you; it serves only to distract you from seeing just how little it actually takes to set you off. — Guy Finley

When you have once seen the chaos, you must make some thing to set between yourself and that terrible sight; and so you make a mirror, thinking that it shall be reflected the reality of the world; but then you understand that the mirror reflects only appearances, and that reality is somewhere else, off behind the mirror; and then you remember that behind the mirror there is only the chaos. — John Banville

Set reasonable goals; not something vague and unrealistic like "I want to be super-model skinny." I always had visions of very thin actresses in my mind when I was at the gym and it seemed so unattainable that I would quit any health regimen before it even got off the ground. But when I changed my mindset to focusing on making the healthiest choices possible for myself, it was a lot more realistic, more attainable, and then the results were visible. — Alison Sweeney

For a spinner growing up in England, it is challenging to become an off-spinner. The line and length needs to be altered on each of the four days of county cricket or five days of Test matches. The pitches in England don't have a set pattern. It changes with each day, and accordingly, the length varies. — Harbhajan Singh

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt's eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven't time to read. — David McCullough

To it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits[1] of the world, and not according to Christ. 9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. — Anonymous

Rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination. As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw - and it didn't improve his mood - was the tabby — J.K. Rowling