Sharp End Quotes & Sayings

But the plains do not continue forever, just as happiness and sorrow both eventually come to an end. Their first hint of the highlands was a rough stretch of land pitted with gorges and rugged valleys that were barren of cover and composed of rock as stubborn and sharp and unyielding as a saint. The jaran playfully called it krinye-tom, the little mountains; Tess called it hell and wondered what the big mountains were like. — Kate Elliott

But suddenly something sharp was cutting me, my throat, my wrists, my ankles. I screamed in shock, thinking he'd brought me there to hurt me more. Then fire started burning through me, and I didn't care about anything else. I begged him to kill me. When Esme and Edward came home, I begged them to kill me too. Carlise sat with me. He held my hand and said that he was so sorry, promising that it would end. He told me everything, and sometimes I listened. He told me what he was, what I was becoming. I didn't believe him. He apologized each time I screamed. Edward wasn't happy. I remember hearing them discuss me. I stopped screaming sometimes. It did no good to scream. — Stephenie Meyer

Focus less on whether or not you win in the end. You still have to be sharp; that's why you prepare well. But once you've prepared, you need to calm down. And you can. You know why? Because it really doesn't matter that much. — David Jensen

Discussions of the effects of serial publication of Victorian novels on their authors and readers1 usually draw attention to the author's peculiar opportunities for cliff-hanging suspense, as, for instance, when Thackeray has Becky Sharp counter old Sir Pitt's marriage proposal at the end of Vanity Fair's fourth number with the revelation
that she is already married, and the reader must wait a month before the husband's identity is revealed. Or it may be pointed out how the author can modify his story in response to his readers' complaints or recommendations, as when Trollope records in his
Autobiography how he wrote Mrs Proudie out of the Barchester Chronicles after overhearing two clergymen in the Athenaeum complaining of his habit of reintroducing the same characters in his fiction. — Ian Gregor

At the end of the street the sharp white needle of the church's steeple poked into the sky as if heaven were a big balloon that needed to be popped. — Wendy Wunder

What I am suggesting is that faith in Jesus risen from the dead transcends but includes what we call history and what we call science. Faith of this sort is not blind belief that rejects all history and science. Nor is it simply - which would be much safer! - a belief that inhabits a totally different sphere, discontinuous from either, in a separate watertight compartment. Rather, this kind of faith, which is like all modes of knowledge defined by the nature of its object, is faith in the creator God, the God who has promised to put all things to rights at the end, the God who (as the sharp point where those two come together) has raised Jesus from the dead within history, leaving as I said evidence that demands an explanation from the scientist as well as anybody else. — N. T. Wright

Come to us and quackle and quank.
Relieve us of our stirrings
With your fangs so sharp and bright
Take this blood that's always purring.
Through our hollow bones it flows
To each feather and downy fluff.
Quell the terrible, horrid urge that so often prinkles us,
Still our dreams, make slow our thoughts
Let tranquillity flood our veins.
Come to us and drink your fill
So we might end our pains.
- The Owls at St. Aegolius calling to the bats — Kathryn Lasky

(If we were caught pointing at a map with a finger, instead of a blade of grass or something sharp, we had been threatened, by the unforgettable Sgt Taff, that he would 'Rip that finger off and beat you to death with the soggy end!' It's a threat that I enjoy passing on to my boys when we are reading a map together nowadays.) — Bear Grylls

She was doing impressively well, he said. She was mentally sharp and physically strong. The danger for her was losing what she had. The single most serious threat she faced was not the lung nodule or the back pain. It was falling. Each year, about 350,000 Americans fall and break a hip. Of those, 40 percent end up in a nursing home, and 20 percent are never able to walk again. The three primary risk factors for falling are poor balance, taking more than four prescription medications, and muscle weakness. Elderly people without these risk factors have a 12 percent chance of falling in a year. Those with all three risk factors have almost a 100 percent chance. — Atul Gawande

Yes", Kumiko said, seriously. "Exactly that. The extraordinary happens all the time. So much, we can't take it. Life and happiness and heartache and love. If we couldn't put it in story - "
"And explain it -"
"No!" she said, suddenly sharp. "Not explain. Stories do not explain. They seem to, but all they provide is a starting point. The story never ends at the end. There is always after. And even within itself, even by saying that this version is the right one, it suggests other versions, versions that exist in parallel. No, story is not an explanation, it is a net, a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of the truth, but not all, never all, only enough so that we can live with the extraordinary without it killing us." She sagged a little, as if exhausted by this speech. "As it surely, surely would. — Patrick Ness

It's good to be a little frightened. It's good to respect your opponent. It keeps you sharp. In the fight game, the head rules the heart. But in the end the heart is the boss. — Bryce Courtenay

[The intellect of fallen man] may be compared to a buzz-saw that is sharp and shining, ready to cut the boards that come to it. Let us say that a carpenter wishes to cut fifty boards for the purpose of laying the floor of a house. He has marked his boards. He has set his saw. He begins at one end of the mark on the board. But he does not know that his seven-year-old son has tampered with the saw and changed its set. The result is that every board he saws is cut slantwise and thus unusable because too short except at the point where the saw made its first contact with the wood. As long as the set of the saw is not changed, the result will always be the same. So also whenever the teachings of Christianity are presented to the natural man, they will be cut according to the set of sinful human personality. — Cornelius Van Til

Because of his gift for language and his endless practice at arguing at Hatfield, my father was effective at holding his own, verbally, in this bear garden. He noticed that an offensive personal remark, however irrelevant, was often the best way of fighting back. After one boy with a long, foolish sharp-ended chin had baited him insistently for minutes on end, he came out with 'your remarks, unlike your chin are utterly pointless' - with a deflating result far better than he could possibly have hoped. — Hugh Cecil

...setting out together in a marriage is a lot like setting out on the river. Some parts will be rough; some will be smooth. You can't see from the start where it's gonna travel and where it's gonna end up. Sometimes it'll turn a sharp corner; sometimes it'll drift along awhile. Thing is, no matter what the river does, both parties gotta paddle equally, see? — Lisa Wingate

Heat, money, sex and fever -this is it, this is New York, this is first class, this is the sharp end. — Martin Amis

The perfect ham and cheese sandwich is all about focusing on quality ingredients and about simple techniques. You start with great bread, a well-cured ham and a sharp local cheese, and the rest is easy. A little butter in a pan and a little patience - in the end you'll have a sandwich that is at once comforting and delicious. — Daniel Humm

Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did - that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest. — Debra Ginsberg

Hammett wrote at first (and almost to the end) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street. Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes — Raymond Chandler

But a smell shivered him awake.
It was a scent as old as the world. It was a hundred aromas of a thousand places. It was the tang of pine needles. It was the musk of sex. It was the muscular rot of mushrooms. It was the spice of oak. Meaty and redolent of soil and bark and herb. It was bats and husks and burrows and moss. It was solid and alive - so alive! And it was close.
The vapors invaded Nicholas' nostrils and his hair rose to their roots. His eyes were as heavy as manhole covers, but he opened them. Through the dying calm inside him snaked a tremble of fear.
The trees themselves seemed tense, waiting. The moonlight was a hard shell, sharp and ready to ready be struck and to ring like steel.
A shadow moved.
It poured like oil from between the tall trees and flowed across dark sandy dirt, lengthening into the middle of the ring. Trees seem to bend toward it, spellbound. A long, long shadow ... — Stephen M. Irwin

I like books that have razor-sharp plotting that snaps and moves along. It's not about the main character being different at the end. I don't want my main character to be different in the end. I still want him committed to his ideas, to be steadfast, true and loyal. — Brad Thor

I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body ... not exactly from living among the hills, and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year's end to year's end: but I have undergone sharp discipline which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have read more than you would fancy. — Emily Bronte

THE VENOM OF THE NORTH WIND July 1774 Brianna drove the sharp end of the spade into the muddy bank and pulled out a — Diana Gabaldon

Perhaps, in the end, there are no such things as creative people; there are only sharp observers with sensitive hearts. — Yasmin Ahmad

I won't be your pawn," I growled.
Puck's lips formed a thin, knowing grin. "In the end, you'll still serve the Fae. — Jamie Wyman

I couldn't find any straw to step upon, so I stepped upon more men. The resentment increased, so did my forward movement. I lost my footing and sat down with sharp abruptness. Unfortunately, it was on a man's head. The next moment he had risen on his hands and knees in wrath, and I was flying through the air. What goes up must come down, and I came down on another man's head.
What happened after that is very vague in my memory. It was like going through a threshing-machine. I was bandied about from one end of the car to the other. Those eighty-four hoboes winnowed me out till what little was lift of me, by some miracle, found a bit of straw to rest upon — Jack London

I was an exceptionally freaked-out child. My earliest memories are of fear, as are pretty much all the memories that come after my earliest memories.
Growing up, I was afraid not only of all the commonly recognized and legitimate childhood dangers: the dark, strangers, the deep end of the swimming pool, but I was also afraid of an extensive list of completely benign things: snow, perfectly nice babysitters, cars, playgrounds, stairs, Sesame Street, the telephone, board games, the grocery store, sharp blades of grass, any new situation whatsoever, anything that dared to move, etc., etc., etc. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Towards the end of your meditation session, or when you feel your meditation is deep, chant "Kring" seven times. Repeat it with sharp intensity, without elongating the syllables. — Frederick Lenz

A tired king at the end of his reign, perhaps not as sharp as he had been, contemplating a disastrous division of his kingdom. — Emily St. John Mandel

Had Schleicher been successful in his leadership of the German government at the end of 1932, he would probably have headed a very moderate, essentially anti-Nazi form of nationalist authoritarianism that would have avoided a sharp break with the republican constitution and promoted a reflationary, reformist economic policy along Keynesian or New Deal lines to revive the economy and conciliate German society. — Stanley G. Payne

So, Lord Dragon, what are your plans for this evening?" He adjusted his body awkwardly and the end of his dealy tail landed gently in her lap.
"Well, I thought we could do that thing again."
"That thing?" Annwyl desperately fought a smile as she ran her hand across the scaled tip. Its very edge shaped like an arrowhead and as sharp. She briefly wondered if teh dragon ever needed to sharpen it with a stone. "Do youmean talking?"
"Yes. Yes. Whatever it is. — G.A. Aiken

It's a wondrous thing, that a decision to act releases energy in the personality. For days on end a person may drift along without much energy. Having no particular sense of direction and having no will to change. Then, something happens to alter the pattern. It may be something very simple and inconsequential in itself. But it stabs awake, it alarms, it disturbs. In a flash, one gets a vivid picture of oneself, and it passes. The result is decision. Sharp, defenitive decision. In the wake of the decision, yes, even as a part of the decision itself, energy is released. The act of decision sweeps all before it, and the life of the individual maybe changed forever. — Howard Thurman

Sometimes fear made you angry. Perhaps after years anger cooled, like a sword taken from a forge. Perhaps in the end you were left with something very cold and very sharp. — Frances Hardinge

In sharp contrast, the blessings are speeches of new energy, for they promise future well-being to those who are without hope. In the deathly world of riches, fullness, and uncritical laughter, those who now live in poverty, hunger, and grief are hopeless. They are indeed nonpersons consigned to nonhistory. They have no public existence, and so the public well-being can never extend to them. But the blessings open a new possibility. So the speech of Jesus, like the speech of the entire prophetic tradition, moves from woe to blessing, from judgment to hope, from criticism to energy. The alternative community to be shaped from the poor, hungry, and grieving is called to disengage from the woe pattern of life to end its fascination with that other ordering, and to embrace the blessing pattern. — Walter Brueggemann

The Captain was halfway to the door when he felt the press of metal against his throat. "I am Bonsoir," the stoat hissed, a scant inch from the Captain's ears. "I have cracked rattlesnake eggs while their mother slept soundly atop them, I have snatched the woodpecker mid-flight. More have met their end at my hand than from corn liquor and poisoned bait! I am Bonsoir, whose steps fall without sound, whose knives are always sharp, who comes at night and leaves widows weeping in the morning. — Daniel Polansky

You encountered a misery near the end of the day and it took a while to gauge its full extent. Some miseries had sharp curvature and could be negotiated readily. Others had almost no curvature and you knew you'd be spending hours turning the corner. Great whopping-big planet-sized miseries. — Jonathan Franzen

He came through the door howling, an axe arched high over his head. His eyes danced in madness, stuck fast on the two of them kissing, caught in their embrace and unaware of him. For a moment they went on, oblivious, untouched by the madman soon to come. It was a bright bubble of illusion on the eve of utter and complete madness.
She was the first to see. The image of her stepfather captured in Mateo's eyes, the furious glee of the Nazi's vengeance, sharp and mirrored in their emerald beauty. Soon those eyes were wide with terror and sorrow in a moment of unbidden regret caught at the end of such happiness. — Amanda M. Lyons

You are a very sharp-tongued little girl," mother said, looking up at me. I am two inches taller than she is.

"Unless you learn to curb yourself, there will be no parties for you, and no party dresses."

This was the speach [sic] that broke the Camel's back. I could endure no more.

"I think," I said, "that I shall get married and end everything."

Need I explain that I had no serious intention of taking the fatal step? But it was not deliberate mendasity[sic]. It was Despair. — Mary Roberts

Let us fill a cup and drink to that most noble, ridiculous, laughable, sublime figure in our lives ... The Young Man Who Was. Let us drink to his dreams, for they were rainbow-colored; to his appetites, for they were strong; to his blunders, for they were huge; to his pains for they were sharp; to his time for it was brief; and to his end, for it was to become one of us. — Herman Wouk

Oh, well, it might look like a patterned world, laid out in prim design, but to those living there it could never be so simple. They were as alive as she: that old peasant contriving to outwit the cold; that woman anxiously counting her comical flock lest one goose escape her vigilance; all those who slept, or toiled, or loved under the low-hung roofs or the sharp turrets. Those people out there, if they caught sight of her own face pressed close to the window pane, might be speculating about her. To them she was part of the pattern of the lumbering train with its trail of smoke and little boxlike carriages. Perhaps they envied her, riding at ease to distant Paris. How little they knew of that! How little she herself know what awaited her at the end of the journey! — Rachel Field

The thing about talking about human rights is that when one bears in mind the sharp end of it, one does not want to worry too much about semantics. — Tom Stoppard

Nothing so difficult as a beginning
In poesy, unless perhaps the end;
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,
Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven for sinning;
Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,
Being Pride, which leads the mind to soar too far,
Till our own weakness shows us what we are.
But Time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last
Man, - and, as we would hope, - perhaps the Devil,
That neither of their intellects are vast:
While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,
We know not this - the blood flows on too fast;
But as the torrent widens towards the Ocean,
We ponder deeply on each past emotion. — George Gordon Byron

Boxer and Clover would harness themselves to the cutter or the horse-rake (no bits or reins were needed in these days, of course) and tramp steadily round and round the field with a pig walking behind and calling out 'Gee up, comrade!' or 'Whoa back, comrade!' as the case might be. And every animal down to the humblest worked at turning the hay and gathering it. Even the ducks and hens toiled to and fro all day in the sun, carrying tiny wisps of hay in their beaks. In the end they finished the harvest in two days' less time than it had usually taken Jones and his men. Moreover, it was the biggest harvest that the farm had ever seen. There was no wastage whatever; the hens and ducks with their sharp eyes had gathered up the very last stalk. And not an animal on the farm had stolen so much as a mouthful. — George Orwell

Mao is a sometime Yin sometime Yang strange man, he has a soft-as-cotton outer layer, but at the same time has sharp needles hiding inside ... I do not think he could achieve anything, at the end he will be crushed inside my palm. — Chiang Kai-shek

(While interviewing The University Student
'Oh, poor Xinran. You haven't even got the various categories of women straight. How can you possibly hope to understand men? Let me tell you. When men have been drinking, they come out with a set of definitions for women. Lovers are "swordfish", tasty but with sharp bones. "Personal secretaries" are "carp", the longer you "stew" them, the more flavour they have. Other men's wives are "Japanese puffer fish", trying a mouthful could be the end of you, but risking death is a source of pride.'
'And what about their own wives?'
'Salt cod, because it keeps for a long time. When there is no other food, salt cod is cheap and convenient. — Xinran

Too many church services start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull. — Vance Havner

And his paths shall be many, and who shall know his name, for he shall be beorn among us many times, in many guises, as he has been and ever will be, time without end. His coming shall be like the sharp edge of the plow, turning our lives in furrows form out of the places where we lie in our silence. The breaker of binds; the forger of chains. The maker of futures; the unshaper of destiny.
-from Commentaries on the Prophecies of the Dragon, by Jurith Dorine, Right Hand to the Queen of Almoren, 742 AB, the Third Age — Robert Jordan

The short sharp shock of three thousand mother two hundred mothers. The ones who picked through the supermarket debris for pieces of their dead husbands. The ones who still laundered their gone son's bed sheets by hand. The ones who kept an extra teacup at the end of the table, in case of miracles. The elegant ones, the angry ones, the clever ones, the ones in hairnets, the ones exhausted by all the dying. They carried their sorrow - not with photos under their arms, or with public wailing, or by beating their chests, but with a weariness around the eyes. Mothers and daughters and children and grandmothers, too. They never fought the wars, but they suffered them, blood and bone. — Colum McCann

Our dress affects not only our thoughts and actions but also the thoughts and actions of others. Accordingly, Paul the Apostle counseled "women [to] adorn themselves in modest apparel" (1 Timothy 2:9).
The dress of a woman has a powerful impact upon the minds and passions of men. If it is too low or too high or too tight, it may prompt improper thoughts, even in the mind of a young man who is striving to be pure.
Men and women can look sharp and be fashionable, yet they can also be modest. Women particularly can dress modestly and in the process contribute to their own self-respect and to the moral purity of men. In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for.
[Ensign, Mar. 2014, 47-48] — Tad R. Callister

People who try to tell you what the blitz was like in London start with fire and explosion and then almost invariably end up with some very tiny detail which crept in and set and became the symbol of the whole thing for them. . . . "It's the glass," says one man, "the sound in the morning of the broken glass being swept up, the vicious, flat tinkle." ... An old woman was selling little miserable sprays of sweet lavender. The city was rocking under the bombs and the light of burning buildings made it like day. . . . And in one little hole in the roar her voice got in - a squeaky voice. "Lavender!" she said. "Buy Lavender for luck."

The bombing itself grows vague and dreamlike. The little pictures remain as sharp as they were when they were new. — John Steinbeck

Some days he wishes that he could simply empty the chambers of the men, fill the halls instead with women: the short sharp shock of three thousand two hundred mothers. The ones who picked through the supermarket debris for pieces of their dead husbands. The ones who still laundered their gone son's bed sheets by hand. The ones who kept an extra teacup at the end of the table, in case of miracles. The elegant ones, the angry ones, the clever ones, the ones in hairnets, the ones exhausted by all the dying. They carried their sorrow
not with photos under their arms, or with public wailing, or by beating their chests, but with a weariness around the eyes. — Colum McCann

Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else's. As a kid growing up with books and films and stories instead of friends, that was always the narrative injustice that upset me more than anything else. I felt it sometimes like a sharp pain under the ribcage, the kind of chest pain that lasts for minutes and hours and might be nothing at all or might mean you're slowly dying of something mundane and awful. It's a feeling that hit when I understood how few girls got to go on adventures. I started reading science fiction and fantasy long before Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, before mainstream female leads very occasionally got more at the end of the story than together with the protagonist. Sure, there were tomboys and bad girls, but they were freaks and were usually killed off or married off quickly. Lady hobbits didn't bring the ring to Mordor. They stayed at home in the shire. — Laurie Penny

If the onset of wrinkles in middle age were referred to as laughter lines, then to look at him, Scott thought, Twinkle's life must have been hilarious. He had sharp eyes that often seemed to visually contradict the lack of intelligence that could be derived from listening to him talk. There might not be a lot to respect in Twinkle, but Scott liked him. He just didn't want to end up like him. — R.D. Ronald

If!" protested Mercy. "I am marrying you, Kit Turner, and there's an end to it!"
Tobias nudged James. "I told you she'd produce a landslide when she got rolling."
Kit, however, was not yet fully aware of the character of the girl whom he had just pledged himself. He put his finger to her lips. "Hush, now, this is between your father and me, Mercy. Let me deal with it."
"Oh, dear, oh, dear," muttered James, shaking his head. "Our brother has a lot to learn about the fairer sex. You never, ever do that."
Kit was suddenly sitting in a chair, a sharp elbow having found a tender spot. Mercy stood before her father, looking defiant, if somewhat bedraggled after her night in prison. — Eve Edwards

She put her hand out and I stare at it. She say, I would like to welcome you to the neighborhood. Her voice sound sharp to me. Clean at the end of each word like when you snap your fingers. After each snap, the sound end, aint nothing coming after it like when we talk. When we talk, its like you humming at the end of every word you say. — Dana Johnson

He spent two years running a hospital for Chai." Molly put her arm around the younger woman. "Which was the equivalent of working the ER in a city like New York or Chicago. He saved a lot of lives." She made sure Max was paying attention, too. "And before you say, 'Yeah, of drug runners, killers, and thieves,' you should also know that his patients were just regular people who worked for Chai because he was the only steady employer in the area. Or because they knew they'd end up in some mass grave if they refused his offer of employment. Before Grady came in, if they were injured in some battle with a rival gang, they were just left for dead."
Jones looked up to find Max watching him as he sterilized a particularly sharp knife. "Me and Jesus," he said. "So much alike, people often get us confused. — Suzanne Brockmann

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek (my weary travel's end)
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend."
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods [dully] on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side,
For that same groan doth put this in my mind:
My grief lies onward and my joy behind. — William Shakespeare

I think about the story of Job I heard in Carol Sharp's Sunday school. How he sort of learned to lean into feeling hurt at the end, the way you might lean into a heavy wind that almost winds up supporting you after a while. — Mary Karr

Everybody asks why I started at the end and worked back to the beginning, the reason is simple, I couldn't understand the beginning until I had reached the end. There were too many pieces of the puzzle missing, too much you would never tell. I could sell these things. People want to buy them, but I'd set all this on fire first. She'd like that, that's what she would do. She'd make it just to burn it. I couldn't afford this one, but the beginning deserves something special. But how do I show that nothing, not a taste, not a smell, not even the color of the sky, has ever been as clear and sharp as it was when I belonged to her. I don't know how to express the being with someone so dangerous is the last time I felt safe ... (White Oleander) — Janet Fitch

I knew I was going to fall out of the tree. Girls as athletically challenged as I was should never climb trees. At the very least, I was going to snag my underwear on a branch and be stuck wearing only a tank top high up in the tree. I shuddered in horror. I was NOT that kind of girl. I had a decent rear-end, but I don't think anyone's butt looks good climbing trees. At the very worst, I would impale myself on a sharp branch like a pig on a spit. Knowing me, both would happen, and I would soon be pantiless and impaled. I could just see the story in the local newspaper: "Local Woman Found Dead and Half Naked in Tree. — Amy Harmon

I'm just interested in women's friendships generally. It always seems to me, and this is just my pet theory, that women are kind of at the sharp end of capitalism one way or another. Mainly because they buy everything. In a practical sense, women buy most things. They're always comparing - to friends, to famous people, to other people. An obsessive act of comparison. — Zadie Smith

Hello?" he said, waiting out the shrill stream on the other end of the line. He smiled, "Because I'm her husband. I can answer her phone, now." He glanced at me, and then shoved open the cab door, offering his hand. "We're at the airport, America. Why don't you and Shep pick us up and you can yell at us both on the way home? Yes, the whole way home. We should arrive around three. All right, Mare. See you then." He winced with her sharp words and then handed me the phone. "You weren't kidding. She's pissed. — Jamie McGuire

Spring, if it lingers more than a week beyond its span, starts to hunger for summer to end the days of perpetual promise. Summer in its turn soon begins to sweat for something to quench its heat, and the mellowest of autumns will tire of gentility at last, and ache for a quick sharp frost to kill its fruitfulness. Even winter - the hardest season, the most implacable - dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself. — Clive Barker

There is a string attached to Maia Sharp's voice. And when she sings, you find that the other
end is attached to your gut. Her voice is lush and sensual and the emotions she articulates
resonate with the small feelings we have that sometimes are hard to face..there is an edge to
her songs, but also a softness ... she is lyrical and conversational at the same time. Her CD was
the only one in my machine for a month. Her work inspires me to dig deeper. — Kathy Mattea

Superstition though does tend to have a sharp end, and I didn't want to find myself impaled on it. — Mark Lawrence

The time was 7:40 A.M. I reached for the phone. "Do you have your axe?" came the voice on the other end. It was Mad Dog. "Yes." "Is your axe sharp?" "No, but I can sharpen it while you're driving here." "How about your knife?" "Got it." "Everything needs to be nice and sharp. — Neil Strauss

Roth Unbound is filled with intelligent readings and smart judgments. Because of the author's sympathy and sharp mind, it offers real insight into the creative process itself, and into Philip Roth's high calling as a great American artist. The book is, in some ways, a radical rereading of Roth's life and his work. It is impossible, by the end, not to feel a tender admiration for Roth as a novelist and indeed for Claudia Roth Pierpont as an empathetic and brilliant critic. — Colm Toibin

All I'm saying is that there is a price to be paid at the sharp end.. environmentally and everywhere else.. for the food that is produced in a particular way. — Prince Charles

I stand by my record. I did some sharp things to get things right - too harsh - but a lot was at stake. But at the end of the day, what have I got? Just a successful Singapore. — Mr. Lee

Mentally, many of the residents are still, as they say, sharp like a tack, but some are now more like the other end of the tack, having been hit with the hammer of life much too often. You know, missing a few candles from their menorah. — Mark Reutlinger

He was always saying he deserved better. Better than this, anyway. I would nod and agree with him, but I never told him what I wanted to tell him, which was, hey, Deepak, when you say that you deserve better, even if I agree with you, you are kind of also implying that I don't deserve better, which, maybe I don't, maybe this is about where I belong in the grand scheme of things, in terms of high-end low-end for me as a person, but I wish you wouldn't say it because whenever you do, it makes me feel a sharp bit of sadness and then, for the rest of the day, a kind of low-grade crumminess. — Charles Yu

He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

He who dares to speak with a razor sharp tongue, shall in end, bare the final scar. — Robert M. Hensel

Would that some could find the courage to help themselves. Craster sprawls in his loft even now, stinking of wine and lost to sense. On his board below lies a sharp new axe. Were it me, I'd name it Answered Prayer' and make an end. — George R R Martin

Then letters came in but three times a week: indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl, the post came in but once a month; - but letters were letters then; and we made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well-bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. — Elizabeth Gaskell

For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is as bitter as wormword, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell — Justin Cronin

Why can't Tashi come to school? she asked me. When I told her the Olinka don't believe in educating girls she said, quick as a flash, They're like white people at home who don't want colored people to learn. Oh, she's sharp, Celie. At the end of the day, when Tashi can get away from all the chores her mother assigns her, she and Olivia secret themselves in my hut and everything Olivia has learned she shares with Tashi. To Olivia right now Tashi alone is Africa. The Africa she came beaming across the ocean hoping to find. Everything else is difficult for her. — Alice Walker

Low wages fail even from a purely business point of view wherever it is a question of producing goods which require any sort of skilled labour, or the use of expensive machinery which is easily damaged, or in general wherever any great amount of sharp attention or of initiative is required. Here low wages do not pay, and their effect is the opposite of what was intended. For not only is a developed sense of responsibility absolutely indispensable, but in general also an attitude which, at least during working hours, is freed from continual calculations of how the customary wage may be earned with a maximum of comfort and a minimum of exertion. Labour must, on the contrary, be performed as if it were an absolute end in itself, a calling. But such an attitude is by no means a product of nature. It cannot be evoked by low wages or high ones alone, but can only be the product of a long and arduous process of education. — Max Weber

Shadowhunter." The creature on the left spoke in a hissing whisper. "We did not know of you in this situation."
Isabelle raised a delicate eyebrow. "And what situation would that be?"
The second subjugate pointed a long gray finger at Simon. The nail on the end of it was yellowed and sharp. "We have dealings with the Daylighter."
"No, you don't," Simon said. "I have no idea who you are. Never seen you before. — Cassandra Clare

The Prime Minister is head of team but its not a one woman act. I've been called all those things. Intellectual, sharp-tongued, all true. But what New Zealander is like is to know that someone is in charge and in the end the buck stops with the Prime Minister. — Helen Clark

I counted his failings in my head: his obnoxious, cocky attitude; his pierced and painted wannabe girlfriend; his leather jacket and black motorcycle; his tattoos and multiple piercings. Even his name rankled. Dante. I'd spent my formative years dodging his type. I refused to be intimidated by him. That poncy lot. I seethed some more. And geeks? Surely he could come up with something more original. My entire year's work depended on a successful outcome here, and Tristan had assured me this guy was the real deal, not just another charlatan. We only had two night's use of the control tower. As of next week, it was scheduled for demolition. I'd convinced myself Dante was just a means to an end, and then he smiled at me, his hard, uncompromising face lighting up for just a second. With his sharp cheekbones and proud chin, he looked almost beautiful, and my stomach turned cartwheels. His eyes glittered like diamonds, pale silver that appeared luminous in the badly lit room. — Sofia Grey

When I reach the end of one row, I continue straight on away from the barn and the farm and the road. I walk until I come to a pile of hay bales and plop myself down. The sun is bright and the air is sharp. In the distance I hear the lowing of cows. It's so peaceful here.
"Merry Christmas, " I whisper to myself. "Merry Christmas, Nate. — Lisa Ann Sandell

Mid the sharp, short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip at the end of its tube, blows out its great red bell,
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. — Robert Browning

In the end it was Shadowhunting they had bonded over - a shared
love of sharp-edged weapons, gleaming seraph blades, the painful
pleasure of burning Marks, the thought-numbing swiftness of battle.
When Alec had wanted to go out hunting alone with Jace, leaving Izzy
behind, Jace had spoken up for her: "We need her with us; she's the
best there is. Aside from me, of course."
She had loved him just for that. — Cassandra Clare

Anger was sharp edged and clear. Grief was messy, blurry.
But in the end both left you hollowed out inside. — Sarah Ockler

But just as misery cannot crawl across an endless path, so does the trail of happiness occasionally reach a sharp end." - The Last Gift — Carla Acheson